LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 



THE DESCENDANT 



a 



"Man is not above Nature, but in Nature' 
HAECKEL 




NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

1897 



LIBRARY 



Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 

All rights reserved. 



TO 

G. W. McC. 



BOOK I 

VARIATION FROM TYPE 
OMNE VIVUM EX OVO 



THE DESCENDANT 



CHAPTER I 

THE child sat upon the roadside. A stiff wind was ris 
ing westward, blowing over stretches of meadow-land that 
had long since run to waste, a scarlet tangle of sumac and 
sassafras. In the remote West, from whose heart the wind 
had risen, the death-bed of the Sun showed bloody after the 
carnage, and nearer at hand naked branches of poplar and 
sycamore were silhouetted against the shattered horizon, 
like skeletons of human arms that had withered in the 
wrath of God. 

Over the meadows the amber light of the afterglow fell 
like rain. It warmed the spectres of dead carrot flowers, 
and they awoke to reflect its glory; it dabbled in the blood 
of sumac and pokeberry ; and it set its fiery torch to the 
goldenrod till it ignited and burst into bloom, flashing a 
subtle flame from field to field, a glorious bonfire from the 
hand of Nature. 

The open road wound lazily along, crossing transversely 
the level meadow-land and leading from the small town of 
Plaguesville to somewhere. Nobody at least nobody 
thereabouts knew exactly where, for it was seldom that a 
native left Plaguesville, and when he did it was only to go 
to Arlington, a few miles farther on, where the road dropped 
him, stretching southward. 

The child sat restlessly upon the rotten rails that were 



4 THE DESCENDANT 

once a fence. He was lithe and sinewy, with a sharp brown 
face and eyes that were narrow and shrewd a small, wild 
animal of the wood come out from the underbrush to bask 
in the shifting sunshine. 

Occasionally a laborer passed along the road from his 
field work, his scythe upon his shoulder, the pail in which 
his dinner was brought swinging at his side. Once a troop 
of boys had gone by with a dog, and then a beggar hob 
bling on his crutch. They were following in the wake of 
the circus, which was moving to Plaguesville from a neigh 
boring town. The child had seen the caravan go by. He 
had seen the mustang ponies and the cowboys who rode 
them j he had seen the picture of the fat lady painted upon 
the outside of her tent , and he had even seen the elephant 
as it passed in its casings. 

Presently the child rose, stooping to pick the blackberry 
briers from his bare legs. He wore nankeen trousers some 
what worn in the seat and a nankeen shirt somewhat worn 
at the elbows. His hand was rough and brier-pricked, his 
feet stained with the red clay of the cornfield. Then, as 
he turned to move onward, there was a sound of footsteps, 
and a man's figure appeared suddenly around a bend in the 
road, breaking upon the glorified landscape like an ill- 
omened shadow. 

It was the minister from the church near the town. He 
was a small man with a threadbare coat, a large nose, and 
no chin to speak of. Indeed, the one attribute of saintli- 
ness in which he was found lacking was a chin. An inch 
the more of chin, and he might have been held as a saint ; 
an inch the less, and he passed as a simpleton. Such is 
the triumph of Matter over Mind. 

"Who is it?" asked the minister. He always inquired 
for a passport, not that he had any curiosity upon the sub 
ject, but that he believed it to be his duty. As yet he had 
only attained that middle state of sanctity where duty and 
pleasure are clearly defined. The next stage is the one in 
which, from excessive cultivation of the senses or atrophy 



THE DESCENDANT 5 

of the imagination, the distinction between the things we 
ought to do and the things we want to do becomes obliter 
ated. 

The child came forward. 

"It's me," he said. "Little Mike Akershem, as minds 
the pigs." 

"Ah!" said the minister. "The boy that Farmer Wat- 
kins is bringing up. Why, bless my soul, boy, you've been 
fighting !" 

The child whimpered. He drew his shirt sleeve across 
his eyes. 

"I i warn't doin' nothin'," he wailed. " Leastways, 
nothin' but mindin' the pigs, when Jake Johnson knocked 
me down, he did." 

"He's a wicked boy," commented the minister, "and 
should be punished. And what did you do when Jake John 
son knocked you down ?" 

" I I fell," whimpered the child. 

" A praiseworthy spirit, Michael, and I am glad to see it 
in one so young and with such a heritage. You know the 
good book says : ' Do good unto them that persecute you 
and despitefully use you.' Now, you would like to do good 
unto Jake Johnson, wouldn't you, Michael ?" 

" I I'd like to bus' him open," sobbed the child. Tears 
were streaming from his eyes. When he put up his hand 
to wipe them away it left dirty smears upon his cheeks. 

The minister smiled and -then frowned. 

"You've forgotten your Catechism, Michael," he said. 
" I'm afraid you don't study it as you should." 

The boy bubbled with mirth. Smiles chased across his 
face like gleams of sunshine across a cloud. 

" I do," he rejoined, righteously. " Jake, he fought me 
on o'count o' it." 

" The Catechism !" exclaimed the minister. " Jake fought 
you because of the Catechism ?" 

" It war a word," said the child. "Jake said it war con- 
sarnin' me an' I " 



6 THE DESCENDANT 

"What word?" the minister demanded. "What did the 
word mean ?" 

" It war an ugly word." The boy's eyes were dry. He 
looked up inquiringly from beneath blinking lids. " It war 
dam damni " 

" Ah !" said the minister, in the tone in which he said 
" Amen " upon a Sabbath, "damnation." 

"Air it consarning me?" asked the child with anxious 
uncertainty. 

The minister looked down into the sharp face where the 
gleams of sunshine had vanished, and only the cloud re 
mained. He saw the wistful eyes beneath the bushy hair, 
the soiled, sunburned face, the traces of a dirty hand that 
had wiped tears away the whole pitiful littleness of the 
lad. The nervous blinking of the lids dazzled him. They 
opened and shut like a flame that flickers and revives in a 
darkened room. 

" No," he said, gently, " you have nothing to do with 
that, so help me God." 

Again the boy bubbled with life. Then, with a swift, 
tremulous change, he grew triumphant. He looked up 
hopefully, an eager anxiety breaking his voice. 

" It might be consarning Jake hisself," he prompted. 

But the minister had stretched the mantle of his creed 
sufficiently. 

" Go home," he said ; " the pigs are needing their supper. 
What ? Eh ? Hold on a bit !" For the boy had leaped 
off like laughter. "What about the circus ? There's to be 
no gadding into such evil places, I hope." 

The boy's face fell. " No, sir," he said. " It's a quar 
ter, an' I 'ain't got it." 

" And the other boys ?" 

"Jake Johnson war looking through a hole in the fence 
an' he wouldn't let me peep never so little." 

" Oh !" said the minister, slowly. He looked down at his 
boots. The road was dusty and they were quite gray. 
Then he blushed and looked at the boy. He was thinking 



THE DESCENDANT 7 

of the night when he had welcomed him into the world a 
little brown bundle of humanity, unclaimed at the great 
threshold of life. Then he thought of the mother, an awk 
ward woman of the fields, with a strapping figure and a coarse 
beauty of face. He thought of the hour when the woman 
lay dying in the little shanty beyond the mill. Something 
in the dark, square face startled him. The look in the eyes 
was not the look of a woman of the fields, the strength in 
the bulging brow was more than the strength of a peasant. 

His code of life was a stern one, and it had fallen upon 
stern soil. As the chosen ones of Israel beheld in Moab a 
wash-pot, so he and his people saw in the child only an em 
bodied remnant of Jehovah's wrath. 

But beneath the code of righteousness there quivered a 
germ of human kindness. 

" Er er, that's all," he said, his nose growing larger and 
his chin shorter. "You may go but how much have 
you ? Money, I mean " 

"Eight cents," replied the child; "three for blackberry, 
ing, an' five for findin' Deacon Joskins's speckled pig as 
war lost. Five and three air eight " 

"And seventeen more," added the minister. "Well, 
here they are. Mind, now, learn your Catechism, and no 
gadding into evil places, remember that." 

And he walked down the road with a blush on his face 
and a smile in his heart. 

The child stood in the white dust of the road. A pale 
finger of sunshine struggled past him to the ditch beside 
the way, where a crimson blackberry-vine palpitated like a 
vein leading to the earth's throbbing heart. About him 
the glory waned upon the landscape and went out; the 
goldenrod had burned itself to ashes. A whippoorwill, 
somewhere upon the rotten fence rails, called out sharply, 
its cry rising in a low, distressful wail upon the air and los 
ing itself among the brushwood. Then another answered 
from away in the meadow, and another from the glimmer 
ing cornfield. 



8 THE DESCENDANT 

A mist, heavy and white as foam, was rising with the 
tide of night and breaking against the foot of the shadowy 
hills. 

The boy shifted upon his bare feet and the dust rose in 
a tiny cloud about him. Far in the distance shone the 
lights of the circus. He could almost hear the sound of 
many fiddles. Behind him, near the turnpike branch, the 
hungry pigs were rooting in the barnyard. He started, and 
the minister's money jingled in his pocket. In the circus- 
tent were the mustang ponies, the elephant, and the fat 
lady. He shifted restlessly. Perspiration stood in beads 
upon his forehead ; his shirt collar was warm and damp. 
His eyes emitted a yellow flame in their nervous blinking. 
There was a sudden patter of feet, and he went spinning 
along the white dust of the road. 



CHAPTER II 

THE circus was over. One by one the lanterns went out ; 
the tight-rope walker wiped the paint and perspiration from 
his face ; the clown laid aside his eternal smile. 

From the opening in the tent a thin stream of heated hu 
manity passed into the turnpike, where it divided into lit 
tle groups, some lingering around stationary wheelbarrows 
upon which stood buckets of pink lemonade, others turning 
into the branch roads that led to the farm-houses along 
the way. 

In the midst of them, jostled helplessly from side to side, 
moved that insignificant combination of brown flesh and 
blue nankeen known as Michael Akershem. As the crowd 
dwindled away, his pace quickened until he went trotting at 
full speed through the shadows that were flung across the 
deserted road. Upon the face of the moon, as she looked 
down upon his solitary little figure, there was the derisive 
smile with which crabbed age regards callow youth and 
Eternity regards Time. 

Perhaps, had he been wise enough to read her face aright, 
the graven exaltation of his own might have given place to 
an expression more in keeping with the cynicism of omnis 
cience. 

But just then, as he trotted resolutely along, the planet 
was of less importance in his reverie than one of the tallow 
candles that illumined the circus-tent. 

The night was filled with visions, but among them the 
solar system held no place. Over the swelling hills, along 
the shadowy road, in the milky moonlight, trooped the 
splendid heroes of the circus-ring. His mind was on fire 
with the light and laughter ; and the chastened brilliance 



10 THE DESCENDANT 

of the night, the full sweep of the horizon, the eternal hills 
themselves seemed but a fitting setting for his tinselled vis 
itants. The rustling of the leaves above his head was the 
flapping of the elephant's ears ; the shimmer upon tufts of 
goldenrod, the yellow hair of the snake-charmer; and the 
quiet of the landscape, the breathless suspense of the ex 
cited audience. 

As he ran, he held his worn straw hat firmly in his hand. 
His swinging strides impelled his figure from side to side, 
and before him in the dust his shadow flitted like an em 
bodied energy. 

Beneath the pallor of the moonlight the concentration of 
his face was revealed in grotesque exaggeration. His eyes 
had screwed themselves almost out of vision, the constant 
blinking causing them to flicker in shafts of light. Across 
his forehead a dark vein ran like a seam that had been left 
unfelled by the hand of Nature. 

From the ditch beside the road rose a heavy odor of 
white thunder-blossom. The croaking of frogs grew louder 
as, one by one, they trooped to their congress among the 
rushes. The low chirping of insects began in the hedges, 
the treble of the cricket piercing shrilly above the base of 
the jar-fly. Some late glow-worms blazed like golden dew- 
drops in the fetid undergrowth. 

The boy went spinning along the road. With the incon 
sequence of childhood all the commonplaces of every day 
seemed to have withered in the light of later events. The 
farmer and his pigs had passed into the limbo of forgetable 
things. 

With the flickering lights of the cottage where Farmer 
Watkins lived, a vague uneasiness settled upon him ; he 
felt a half-regret that Providence, in the guise of the min 
ister, had thought fit to beguile him from the unpleasant 
path of duty. But the regret was fleeting, and as he crawled 
through a hole in the fence he managed to manipulate his 
legs as he thought the rope-walker would have done under 
the circumstances. 



THE DESCENDANT II 

From the kitchen window a stream of light issued, falling 
upon the gravelled path without. Against the lighted in 
terior he beheld the bulky form of the farmer, and beyond 
him the attenuated shadow of the farmer's wife stretching, 
a depressing presence, upon the uncarpeted floor. 

As the child stepped upon the porch the sound of voices 
caused him to pause with abruptness. A lonely turkey, 
roosting in the locust-tree beside the house, stirred in its 
sleep, and a shower of leaves descended upon the boy's 
head. He shook them off impatiently, and they fluttered to 
his feet. 

The farmer was speaking. He was a man of peace, and 
his tone had the deprecatory quality of one who is talking 
for the purpose of keeping another silent. 

"My father never put his hand to the plough," said the 
farmer, and he stooped to knock the ashes from his pipe ; 
" nor more will I." 

He spoke gently, for he was a good man good, inas 
much as he might have been a bad man, and was not. A 
negative character is most often a virtuous one, since to be 
wicked necessitates action. 

The voice of the farmer's wife flowed on in a querulous 
monotone. 

" Such comes from harborin' the offspring of harlots and 
what-not," she said. " It air a jedgment from the Lord." 

The child came forward and stood in the kitchen door 
way, scratching his left leg gently with the toes of his right 
foot. The sudden passage from moonlight into lamplight 
bewildered him, and he stretched out gropingly one wiry 
little hand. The exaltation of his mind was chilled sud 
denly. 

For a moment he stood unobserved. The farmer was 
cleaning his pipe with the broken blade of an old pruning- 
knife, and did not look up. The farmer's wife was knead 
ing dough, and her back was turned. All the bare and sor 
did aspect of the kitchen, the unpolished walls, the pewter 
dishes in the cupboard, the bucket of apple parings in the 



12 THE DESCENDANT 

corner, struck the child as a blight after the garish color 
of the circus-ring. He felt sick and ill at ease. 

The monotone of the farmer's wife went relentlessly on. 
" A jedgment for harborin' the offspring of harlots," she re 
peated. " God A'mighty knows what mischief he air work- 
in' to-night. He air worse than a weasel." 

From the child's face all brightness was blotted out. 
His lips tightened until the red showed in a narrow line, 
paling from the pressure as a scar pales that is left from an 
old sabre cut. 

The farmer replied soothingly, his hand wandering rest 
lessly through his beard. " He air a young child," he said, 
feebly. " I reckon he air too little to work much." 

Then he looked up and saw the shrinking figure in the 
doorway. He shook his head slowly, more in weariness 
than wrath. 

"You hadn't ought to done it," he murmured, reproach 
fully. " You hadn't ought to done it." 

A sob stuck in the boy's throat. With a terrible revul 
sion of feeling, his passionate nature leaped into revolt. 
As the farmer's wife turned, he faced her in sullen defiance. 

" I 'ain't never seed nothin' afore," he said, doggedly. " I 
'ain't never seed nothin' afore." 

It was the justification he offered to opposing fate. 

The woman turned upon him violently. 

"You ingrate !" she cried. "A-leaving me to do your 
dirty work. A-sneaking off on meetin' night an' leaving me 
to tote the slops when I ought to led the choir. You in 
grate !" 

The child looked pitifully small and lonely. He pulled 
nervously at the worn brim of his straw hat. Still he 
sought justification by facts. 

" You are been to meetin' every Wednesday night sence 
I war born," he said, in the same dogged tone, " an' I 'ain't 
never seed nothin' afore." 

Then the impotence of all explanation dawned upon him 
and his defiance lost its sullen restraint. He felt the rage 



THE DESCENDANT 13 

within him burst like a thunder cloud. The lamplight trem 
bled in the air. The plank floor, the pewter plates, the 
chromos pinned upon the wall passed in a giddy whirl be 
fore his eyes. All his fire-tinctured blood quickened and 
leaped through his veins in a fever of scarlet. His face 
darkened from brown to black like the face of a witch. 
His thin lips were welded one into the other, and Nature's 
careless handiwork upon his forehead palpitated like a visi 
ble passion. 

He sprang forward, striking at vacancy. 

" I hate you !" he cried. " Curse you ! Curse you !" 

Then he turned and rushed blindly out into the night. A 
moment more and he was speeding away into the meadows. 
Like a shadow he had fled from the lamplight, like a shadow 
he had fled from the gravelled walk, and like a shadow he 
was fleeing along the turnpike. 

He was unconscious of all save rage, blinding, blacken 
ing rage a desire to stamp and shriek aloud to feel his 
fingers closing upon something and closing and closing 
until the blood ran down. The old savage instinct to kill 
fell upon him like a mantle. 

A surging of many waters started in his head, growing 
louder and louder until the waters rose into a torrent, shut 
ting out all lesser sounds. The sob in his throat stifled 
him, and he gasped and panted in the midst of the moon 
lit meadows. Suddenly he left the turnpike, dashing across 
country with the fever of a fox pursued by hounds. Over 
the swelling hills, where the corn -ricks stood marshalled 
like a spectre battalion, he fled, spurred by the lash of his 
passion. Beneath him the valley lay wrapped in a transpa 
rent mist ; above him a million stars looked down in pas 
sionless self-poise. 

When he had run until he could run no more, he flung 
himself face downward upon the earth, beating the dew- 
drenched weeds into shapeless pulp. 

" I hate 'em ! I hate 'em !" he cried, choking for speech. 

" Damn damn damn them all. I wish they war all in 



I 4 THE DESCENDANT 

hell. I wish the whole world war in hell t/he farmer and 
the missis, and the minister and little Luly ! I wish every 
body war in hell everybody 'cept me and the pigs !" 

He ran his hand through his hair, tearing apart the matted 
waves. His lips quivered and closed together. Then he 
rolled over on his back and lay looking Up to where the sky 
closed like a spangled vault above him. 

" I hate 'em ! I hate 'em !" he cried, and his cry fell quiv- 
eringly against the relentless hills. " I hate 'em !" 

Back the faint echo came, ringing like the answering 
whisper of a devil, " h-a-t-e 'e-m e-m h-a-t-e !" 

Above him, beyond the wall of stars, he knew that God 
had his throne God sitting in awful majesty before the 
mouth of hell. He would like to call up to Him to tell 
Him of the wickedness of the farmer's wife. He was sure 
that God would be angry and send her to hell. It was 
strange that God had overlooked her and allowed such 
things to be. Then he pictured himself dying all alone out 
upon the hillside ; and the picture was so tragic that he fell 
to weeping. No ; he would not die. He would grow up 
and become a circus-rider, and wear blue stockinet and gold 
lace. The farmer's wife and the farmer's ten children, 
their ten braids all smoothly plaited, would come to watch 
him ride the mustang ponies, and he would look straight 
across their heads and bow when the people applauded. 

He saw himself standing before the glittering footlights, 
with the clown and the tight-rope walker beside him, and 
he saw himself, the most dazzling of the trinity, bowing 
above the excited heads of the farmer's children. 

Yes, that would be a revenge worth having. 

He sat up and looked about him. The night was very 
silent, and a chill breeze came blowing noiselessly across 
the hills. The moonlight shimmered like a crystalline liquid 
upon the atmosphere. 

His passion was over, and he sat, with swollen eyes and 
quivering lips, a tiny human figure in the vast amphitheatre 
of Nature. 



THE DESCENDANT 15 

Beyond the stretch of pasture the open road gleamed 
pallid in the distance. The inky shadows through which 
he had passed some hours ago seemed to have thrilled into 
the phantoms of departed things. He wondered how he 
had dared to pass among them. Upon the adjoining hill 
he could see the slender aspens in the graveyard. They 
shivered and whitened as he looked at them. At their feet 
the white tombstones glimmered amid rank periwinkle. In 
a rocky corner he knew that there was one grave isolated in 
red clay soil one outcast from among the righteous dead. 

He felt suddenly afraid of the wicked ghost that might 
arise from that sunken grave. He was afraid of the aspens 
and the phantoms in the road. With a sob he crouched 
down upon the hillside, looking upward at the stars. He 
wondered what they were made of if they were really 
holes cut in the sky to let the light of heaven stream 
through. 

The night wind pierced his cotton shirt, and he fell to 
crying softly ; but there was no one to hear. 

At last the moon vanished behind a distant hill, a gray 
line in the east paled into saffron, and the dawn looked 
down upon him like a veiled face. Presently there was a 
stir at the farm, and the farmer's wife came from the cow- 
pen with a pail of frothy milk in her hand. 

When she had gone into the house the boy left the hill 
side and crept homeward. He was sore and stiff, and his 
clothes were drenched with the morning dew. He felt all 
alone in a very great world, and the only beings he regarded 
as companions were the pigs in the barn-yard. His heart 
reproached him that he had not given them their supper. 

The turnpike was chill and lonely as he passed along it. 
All the phantoms had taken wings unto themselves and 
flown. Upon the rail-fence the dripping trumpet-vine hung 
in limp festoons, yellow and bare of bloom. He paused to 
gather a persimmon that had fallen into the road from a 
tree beyond the fence, but it set his teeth on edge and he 
threw it away. A rabbit, sitting on the edge of a clump of 



!6 THE DESCENDANT 

brushwood, turned to glance at him with bright, suspicious 
eyes. Then, as he drew nearer, it darted across the road 
and between the rails into the pasture. The boy limped 
painfully along. His joints hurt him when he moved, and 
his feet felt like hundredweights. He wondered if he was 
not going to die shortly, and thought regretfully of the blue 
stockinet and tinsel which he could not carry with him into 
an eternity of psalm-singing. 

Reaching the house, he seated himself upon the step of the 
porch and looked with miserable eyes at the kitchen window. 
The smell of steaming coffee floated out to him, and he 
heard the clinking of cups and saucers. Through the open 
window he beheld the bustling form of the farmer's wife. 

Then, with a cautious movement, the door opened and 
the farmer came out upon the porch. He glanced hesi 
tatingly around and, upon seeing the boy, vanished precip 
itately, to reappear bearing a breakfast-plate. 

The child caught a glimpse of batter-bread and bacon, 
and his eyes glistened. He seized it eagerly. The farmer 
drew a chair near the doorway and seated himself beneath 
the bunch of red pepper that hung drying from the sash. 
He turned his eyes upon the boy. They were dull and 
watery, like the eyes of a codfish. 

" You hadn't ought to done it, sonny," he said, slowly. 
" You hadn't ought to done it." 

Then he drew a small quid of tobacco from his pocket 
and began to unwind the wrapping with laborious care. 
" It war a fine show, I reckon," he added. 

The child nodded with inanimate acquiescence. It all 
seemed so long ago, the color and the splendor. It might 
as well have taken place in ancient Rome. 

The farmer reached leisurely down into the pocket of his 
jeans trousers and drew out the old pruning-knife. Then he 
cut off a small square of tobacco and put it in his mouth. 

" Sence it war a fine show," he said, reflectively, " I wish 
I'd ha' done it myself." 

And he fell to chewing with a sigh. 



CHAPTER III 

THE child grew apace. He shot upward with the im 
provident growth of a weed that has sprung in a wheat- 
field. The changing seasons only served to render his hold 
upon life more tenacious and his will more indomitable. 
And, by -and -by, the child became the youth and waxed 
strong and manly. At nineteen he was lithe and straight 
as a young pine. Slightly above the average height, he 
had the look of a sturdy, thickset farmer, but with more 
than a farmer's breadth of brow. The dark hair still grew 
in a tangled mat upon his head, his features had rough 
ened, and the lines in his face were deeply hewn. His jaws 
were strongly marked, and he had thin, flexible lips that 
quivered with reserve or paled with passion. Beneath the 
projecting brows his eyes were narrowed by a constant 
blinking. 

Between himself and his little world there was drawn an 
invisible circle. The shadow that moved before or followed 
after him was a moral plague spot to the vision of his 
neighbors. If, with a spasmodic endeavor, they sought oc 
casionally to rescue this stray brand from the burning, the 
rescue was attempted with gloved hands and a mental 
pitchfork. In periods of relaxation from personal purifica 
tion, they played with the boy as children play with fire. It 
was the only excitement they permitted themselves. 

As for the brand himself, he made the mistake of re 
garding the situation from a personal standpoint. Feeding 
the flame as he did, he naturally was unable to appreciate 
the vantage-ground of those who were only singed by it, 
and consequently in a position to enjoy that thrill of possi 
ble danger which is only enjoyable because the danger is 



IS THE DESCENDANT 

not possible at all. Being insensible to any danger, he 
failed to experience the thrill. 

But what he did experience was a silent rage that in the 
end froze into a silent bitterness. As we all look upon life 
through the shadows which we ourselves cast upon it, so 
the facts of organic existence shape themselves in our hori 
zon conformably with the circumstances which have shaped 
our individual natures. We see large or small, symmetrical 
or distorted forms, not according to external forces which 
have played upon, external objects, but according to the ad 
justment of light and shade about our individual lenses. 
Truth is only truth in its complexity ; our convictions are 
only real in their relativity. But Michael had not learned 
this. He still believed in his own ability to make plain 
the crooked ways of his neighbors' consciences. Socrates 
believed this, and where had arisen a greater than Soc 
rates ? Perhaps the one thing which Socrates and Michael 
had in common was a faith in the power of truth and the 
impotence of error; but then, Socrates and Michael each 
followed a different truth. Only the name of their divinity 
was the same his face was different. 

So Michael saw the village doors close upon him, and 
laughed. He saw the girls pass him by with averted mod 
esty and turn to look after him, and laughed again. He 
saw them, one and all, watching with a vulgar interest for 
the inheritance to creep out and the blood to show and 
he sneered outwardly while he raged within. 

He was a bright lad. The school-master had said so, 
and the school-master was right. Easily he outstripped all 
the hardy farmers' louts in the class, and easily, in the end, 
he had outstripped the school-master himself. Then the 
minister had taken him in hand, and before long he had 
outstripped the minister. 

" Here are my books," the minister had said, " make use 
of them." And he had looked over his shoulder to see 
that blue-eyed Emily was afar. He was a bright lad, but 
well, blood is blood. 



THE DESCENDANT 19 

And Michael had made use of the books. He had fed 
upon them and he had laid up a store of capital. One and 
all, he had read them and absorbed them and pondered 
over them, and one and all he had disbelieved them. 

The minister handed him " The Lives of the Saints," 
and the next day he had brought it back, throwing it down 
upon the table. 

" A lot of pig-headed idiots," he said, with his lip curling 
and his grating laugh, " who hadn't enough sense to know 
whether they were awake or asleep." 

The minister shuddered and recoiled. 

" Be silent," he said. " If yon have no respect for me, at 
least show some for God and the holy men who represent 
Him." 

" Fiddlesticks !" said Michael. " They were so befud 
dled that they got God and the devil mixed, that's all." 

But he laid the book aside and helped the minister 
about his copying. He was not without a wayward regard 
for worth. He was only warm with his fresh young blood 
and throbbing with vitality. The restless activity of mind 
could not be checked. The impassioned pursuit of knowl 
edge was sweeping him onward. Self-taught he was and 
self-made he would be. The genius of endurance was fit 
ting him to struggle, and in the struggle to survive. 

So he drew out the minister's dog-eared sermon and set 
about the copying. He had copied such sermons before, 
and it was a task he rather enjoyed, given the privilege of 
making amendments which the minister good-naturedly 
granted. As for the minister himself, perhaps he remem 
bered the occasions upon which the boy had written ser 
mons as compositions, and how he had delivered them as 
substitutes for old ones of his own which had worn thread 
bare. In his simple-minded search for divine purposes, 
the cleverness of the lad appeared inexplicable. That the 
hand of the Almighty should have overreached a flock of 
his elect to quicken with consuming fire the mind of an 
Ishinaelite seemed suspiciously like one of those stumb- 



20 THE DESCENDANT 

ling-stones to faith which we accept as tests of the blind 
ness of our belief. 

That Michael knew more philosophy than he, he had ac 
knowledged cheerfully, and now he was fast beginning to 
harbor a suspicion that Michael knew more theology as 
well. 

He heaved a perplexed sigh and went to interview a con 
sumptive concerning his spiritual condition, while Michael 
dipped his pen in the inkstand and fell to work. 

It was a moment such as he enjoyed, when his intellec 
tual interests were uppermost and his mind eager to seize 
an abstract train of thought. He remembered such exalta 
tions during the long winter nights when he had sat up 
with a tallow candle and attacked the problems of politi 
cal economy. He had spent plodding hours in mastering 
them, but mastered them he had. The dogged endurance 
of mind had perhaps served him better than any natural 
quickness. 

The remembrance of those winter nights turned the 
channel of his thoughts, and from the minister's sermon he 
passed to larger premises and wider demonstrations. Push 
ing the paper aside, he leaned back against the cushioned 
back of the minister's chair and allowed his gaze to wander 
from the sheets before him to the flower-beds in the garden 
below, and then, past the wood-pile, where the hickory chips 
had rotted to mould, to the jagged line of purple mountains. 
The landscape was radiant with color. As the sunlight fell 
over them the meadows deepened in opalescent tints, pur 
pling with larkspur, yellowing with dandelion, and whitening 
to a silver sweep of life everlasting. 

Across Michael's lips a smile passed faintly, like the 
ripple of sunlight upon a murky pool. He put up his hand 
and brushed a lock of hair from his brow. He looked sud 
denly younger and more boyish. Then his reverie was 
broken by a sound of footsteps. The lattice door in the 
passage opened and shut, and a shadow passed across the 
chintz curtain at the window. He heard voices, at first 



THE DESCENDANT 21 

broken and indistinct, and then clearer, as his mind left its 
cloudy heights and returned to commonplaces. 

One was the gentle voice of the minister's wife. "And 
if you can help me out with the custard-spoons," it said, 
" I'll be mightily obliged. I have a dozen of mother's, to 
be sure, but, somehow, I don't just like to use them. If you 
can let me have ten, I reckon I can manage to make out 
with them and some tin ones Aunt Lucy sent me last 
Christmas." 

The other voice was sharper and brisker. 

" I reckon I can piece out a dozen," it returned, with the 
ringing emphasis of one eager to oblige. " If I can't, I'll 
just borrow them from old Mrs. Cade without saying what 
I want with 'em. And I'll send all the things over by Tim 
othy as soon as I get home the custard-spoons, and the 
salver for the cake, and the parlor lamp. If that glass 
stand for butter ain't too badly cracked, I'll send that along 
too ; and I'll be over in plenty of time to help you set the 
tables and fix things." 

A murmur of thanks followed in the gentle tones, and 
then the brisker ones began. 

" You'll have a first-rate evening for the party," they ob 
served. "When I got up this morning the wind was in the 
east, but it has shifted round again. Well, I'll send the 
things all right." 

" I'm mightily obliged," responded the minister's wife, in 
her repressed manner. " I hope it warn't any trouble for 
you to bake the cake our stove draws so poorly. It seems 
a heap of work to go to, but the minister never can deny 
Emily anything ; and, after all, a birthday tea ain't much to 
do for her. She's a good child." 

The other voice chimed in with cordial assent. "If a 
little party makes her happy, I reckon you don't begrudge 
the work. She won't be sixteen but once, I say, and it's 
just as well to do what we can." 

" If it makes her happy," added the gentle voice, and 
then it sighed softly. " There's always a cloud," it said. 



22 THE DESCENDANT 

"To be sure, this is a very little one, but, as I told the 
minister, it was the prophet's little cloud that raised the 
storm." 

It was silent for a moment and then spoke sadly. 

" It's about Michael," it said. 

The brisker tones drooped. 

" That boy !" 

"Well, the minister's compassions are great, you know, 
and he can't feel just easy about not asking him. Of 
course, we must consider the other young folks, but the 
minister says it don't seem to him human to leave him 
out." 

" Of course, I ain't as fit to judge as the minister, but I 
know I shouldn't like to have him around with my Lucy. 
And it seems to me that it ain't right to encourage him in 
familiarity with his birth, too." 

" Yes," assented the soft voiq/2, deprecatingly, " but the 
minister can't feel easy about it. He says he knows Christ 
would have had him." 

The brisk tones rose in an ejaculation. 

" But the Lord never lived in such times as these !" 

" I can't help its worrying me," continued the minister's 
wife, " and Emily is just like her father all tenderness and 
impulse. It does seem hard " Then the voice changed 
suddenly. "Oh, you wanted the nutmeg grater," it said. 
" I forgot all about it." 

And the lattice door opened and shut quickly. 

When the minister came in a while later he found Mi 
chael standing beside the desk, his clenched hand resting 
upon the lid. At his feet lay the uncopied sermon. It 
was crumpled and torn, as if it had been held in a brutal 
grasp. The boy's lips were pale and a yellow rage flickered 
in his eyes. As the minister paused, he confronted him. 

" I hate these people !" he cried. " I hate them ! I hate 
everybody who has come near this place. I hate my father 
because he was a villain. I hate my mother because she 
was a fool." 



THE DESCENDANT 23 

He said it vehemently, his impassioned glance closing 
upon the minister. The minister quavered. The genial 
smile with which he had entered faded from his face. He 
had faced such storms before and they always stunned 
him. 

"I I feel for you," he stammered, "but " and he was 
silent. The boy stood upon other ground than his, and he 
could not follow him ; he saw with other eyes, and the light 
blinded him. In his veins the blood of two diverse natures 
met and mingled, and they formed a third a mental hy 
brid. The spirit that walked within him was a dual one 
a spirit of toil, a spirit of ease ; a spirit of knowledge, a 
spirit of ignorance ; a spirit of improvidence, a spirit of 
thrift; a spirit of submission, a spirit of revolt. 

" I hate them all !" repeated Michael. 

His scorching gaze blazed through the open window and 
seemed to wither the beds of flowering portulacca in the 
garden. "I hate these people with their creeds and their 
consciences. They dare to spit upon me, that I am not as 
clean as they. I hate them all !" 

From without the full-throated call of a cat-bird floated 
into the room. Then it grew fainter and was lost in the 
graveyard. Michael's face was dark and ugly. All the in 
growing bitterness of his youth was finding an outlet. 

" What have I done ?" he cried, passionately. " What 
have I done ? Is it my fault that the laws of nature do not 
wait upon marriage banns ? Is it my " He paused sud 
denly. 

"I I am sure that you misjudge them," said the minis 
ter. " I am sure that " 

The door opened, and his own pretty Emily, her blue 
eyes all alight, darted into the room. Michael's eyes fell 
upon her, and, unconsciously to himself, they softened. 

The minister saw the softening, and he stammered and 
grew confused. He fell back as if to shelter the girl from 
the look, pushing her hastily into an adjoining room. 

" Go go, my dear your mother wants you, I am sure of 



2 4 



THE DESCENDANT 



it." Then he turned and took up his speech. "I I 
am " and his conscience stung him and he blushed and 
stammered again. Michael laughed shortly. There was 
something brutal in the sound of it. 

" Your daughter is safe," he said. " I will turn my eyes 
away.". 

And the minister blushed redder than before. 

There was something masterful about the boy, and he 
had the brow of a genius, but well, girls will be girls, and 
there's no telling. 

Michael walked to the window and stood looking at the 
flower-beds in the garden. Then he turned and faced the 
minister, all the bitterness of his warped and sullen nature 
in his voice. 

" I want to get away," he said. " Anywhere that I am 
not known anywhere. I can work. I can work my fingers 
to the bone but I must get away." 

The minister thought for a moment. 

" I could help you a little," he said, slowly. " Say, lend 
you enough to pay your passage to, and a week's board in ? 
New York. Such a bright fellow must find work. And, 
by-the-by, I've a cousin in the grocery business there ; 
perhaps he could get you a job " 

He said it honestly, for he wished well to the boy ; and 
yet there was a secret satisfaction in the chance of getting 
rid of him, of losing the responsibility of one stray sheep. 
God, in his wisdom, might redeem him, but the minister 
felt that the task was one for omnipotent hands to under 
take. It was too difficult for him. If the Lord could un 
ravel the meshes of Satan, he couldn't, and it shouldn't be 
expected of him. 

" I'll go," said Michael. He said it with determination, 
bringing his quivering hand down upon the table. " I'll 
go. I'd rather die anywhere else than live here but I 
won't die. I'll succeed. I'll live to make you envy me 
yet." 

A sudden flame had kindled in his eyes. It shot fitfully 



THE DESCENDANT 25 

forth between the twitching lids. He became infused with 
life with a passionate vitality, strong to overcome. 

" I'll go to-morrow," he said. 

He left the minister's house, walking briskly down the nar 
row path leading to the whitewashed gate. At the gate he 
paused and looked back. In a patch of vivid sunshine that 
fell upon an arbor of climbing rose he saw the blue flutter 
of pretty Emily's skirts. She put back the hair from her 
eyes and stood gazing after him, an expression of childish 
curiosity upon her face. All the joy of life at that moment 
seemed filtered through the sunlight upon her head. 

He sighed and passed onward. Upon the steps of the 
farmer's cottage sat a plump child in a soiled pinafore. It 
was little Luly, the youngest of the farmer's ten children. 
As he entered the house she rose and trotted after him on 
her plump little legs. 

In the doorway he was met by the farmer's wife. She 
held a pan of watermelon rinds in her hand. " Take these 
here rinds to the pig-pen," she said, " an' then you kin draw 
some water fur dinner. There ain't none left in the water- 
bucket." The boy looked at her silently. He was debat 
ing in his mind the words in which he would renounce her 
service. He had often enacted the scene in imagination, 
and in such visions he had beheld himself rising in right 
eous wrath and defying the farmer's wife with dramatic 
gestures. Now, somehow, it all seemed very stale and 
flat, and he couldn't think of just what to say. The woman 
was harder to confront in real life than she had been in his 
dreams. He wished he had gone away without saying any 
thing to anybody. 

At last he spoke with a labored emphasis. 

" I won't feed the pigs," he said, and his voice sounded 
half apologetic, " and I won't draw the water ; I am going 
away." 

At the dinner-table the farmer was sitting before a plate 
of cabbage. He removed his knife slowly from his mouth 
and regarded the boy with mild amazement. 



26 THE DESCENDANT 

" An' the crops ain't in," he murmured, reproachfully. 

The farmer's wife set the pan on the table and wiped her 
face upon the corner of her gingham apron. 

" You ain't goin' fur good, I reckon ?" she suggested. 

Michael stood awkwardly before her. He had expected 
vituperation, and when it did not come he felt curiously 
ashamed of his resolve. 

" Yes," he said, with a long pause between his words, 
" yes ; I am going for good I am not coming back ever 
any more. I am going for good." 

A stifled wail broke from little Luly. " An' you 'ain't 
made my water-wheel," she cried. " You 'ain't made my " 

Her mother silenced her, and then looked at Michael in 
rising anger. 

" You kin go as fast as you please," she said. "It'll be 
a good riddance. I won't hev my children mixin' with the 
offspring of har " 

But Michael had flung himself out of the room. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE Old Dominion steamed slowly into the New York 
wharf, and her passengers made a precipitate rush for the 
gangway. Among those who left the third-class cabin 
there was an awkward youth in an ill-fitting suit of clothes 
and a cheap straw hat. From his right hand was suspend 
ed a small bundle which held all his earthly possessions of 
a tangible quality. His capital he carried in his brain. 

As he stepped from the gangway to the wharf he hesi 
tated and fell back, confused by the din of traffic. 

" Step lively there !" called some one from behind, and 
the young man collected himself with a shake and started 
down the long wharf amidst a medley of boxes, trucks, and 
horses' feet. 

" If you air looking for New York I guess you won't find 
it in that direction," remarked a laborer who was winding a 
coil of rope at some little distance. 

Michael turned, his face reddening, and retraced his steps 
to his starting-point, from whence he made a fresh venture. 

The tumult bewildered him. He was feeling strangely 
homesick, and there was a curious weakness in the pit of 
his stomach. It was as if he were passing to a scaffold of 
his own erecting. He wondered how so many people could 
ever have come to New York. Surely, if. he had known 
what it was like, he would have remained where his lines 
had fallen until death had readjusted them. He had never 
heard so much noise in his life, not even in Arlington on 
court day. 

But when at last the shipping district lay behind him 
and he turned into Sixth Avenue, his youth and energy com 
bined to reassure him, and a flush of excitement revived 



28 THE DESCENDANT 

something of his dominant bearing. Even the knowledge 
that his trousers bagged hopelessly, which dawned upon 
him like a revelation, was not sufficient to check the rising 
exaltation of spirit. It was like being born again to start 
upon life with no ties in the past to bind one with no 
past, only a future. His second birth would be free from 
the curse that had descended upon his first. He would 
make himself, let the weathercock of circumstances veer 
beneath ill- winds as it would. Circumstances crumble be 
fore a determined mind. 

Yes ; with two hands and a brain to guide them he would 
create a new Michael Akershem, as God had created a new 
Adam. He had the power there was nothing beyond him 
nothing. 

With a vigorous gesture he threw back his head and sur 
veyed his surroundings. He regarded them with the curi 
osity with which a thinking infant might regard the universe 
as it sprang into existence. 

Several points about the city impressed him, fresh from 
his primitive environments ; first the size, secondly the ug 
liness, and thirdly the indifference. No one noticed him, 
no one turned to look after him, and when he jostled any 
body they accepted his apology without seeing him or 
knowing what he meant. In the beginning it was refresh 
ing, and he thrilled with the knowledge of freedom. Here, 
his right was unquestioned, his identity ignored ; he was 
but one atom moving in its given line amidst many thou 
sands. Then the denseness of population oppressed him, 
humanity jammed into a writhing mass, like maggots in a 
cheese. The tenements, with their smoke-stained windows 
their air of dignified squalor seemed to cut off all means 
of ventilation. He examined them curiously, pausing on the 
sidewalk to look upward, dazed by their height and by the 
number of their tenants. He laughed at the fire-escapes, 
spindling from the roof, at the inevitable geranium in its 
tomato-can, stunted and bare of bloom, the burlesque of a 
living flower. 



THE DESCENDANT 29 

On the Bowery he found a cheap restaurant with a sign 
reading, "Corned-beef & Onions, 10 cents," and he went 
inside and got breakfast at the counter. Then he came 
out and set about making his fortune. 

That was the first day, and on that day he went into 
twelve offices seeking employment. Upon the second day 
he went into twenty-four ; upon the third, fifty. At the end 
of the third day his courage faltered, at the end of the 
fourth it failed, and at the end of the fifth it oozed rapidly 
away. 

He wandered restlessly about the streets. He no longer 
feared the crowd, he no longer feared anything. He was 
desperate and hungry, like an untamed animal. Corned- 
beef and onions at ten cents are cheap, but when one has 
not the ten cents they might as well be twenty. 

" I want work," he said to the foreman of some machine 
shops. 

"Work!" repeated the man. "Why, there are a thou 
sand men outside wanting work as hard as you, and as lit 
tle likely to get it." 

"It's my right," cried Michael, hotly; "the world owes 
me a living and I'll have it." 

" The world owes you a living, very probably," said the 
man, "but you'll find it deuced hard to collect. The world's 
a bad debtor." 

He had gone out with an impotent curse upon the des 
tiny that held his leading-strings. It was unjust ! It was 
damnable ! 

The sunshine blinded him. He was young and strong 
and vibrating with energy, and yet, in the prodigal waste of 
Nature, this strength and energy were held of less account 
than the blowing of the wind. The former exultation of 
mind recoiled upon him in a wave of bitterness and dwin 
dled to a slough of despond. 

In the beginning he had sought only for a situation in 
which there might chance a rise. He had taken his brain 
into consideration, and in imagination he had allowed his 



30 THE DESCENDANT 

ambition full play. Now, in the delirium of apparent failure, 
he cried out that for manual labor alone he was fitted, and 
that his dream of mental power was but the self-deception 
of a fool. Then it was that he went to the wharf at which 
he had landed, and asked for a job at the trucking. 

It was given him, a substitute being needed in place of 
one of the employes who had been injured. 

For a week Michael worked at the wharf among the com 
mon laborers. He stood shoulder to shoulder with negro 
hands and swung freight across the gang-plank. It was the 
roughest work that he had ever done, and his hands grew 
redder and more knotted and his shoulders lost their up 
rightness. 

With the loading of the vessels frenzy seized upon him, 
and he worked at the high-pressure of insanity. Then, in 
the hours of leisure, the vultures of disappointed hopes 
preyed upon his vitals, and he faced life as Prometheus 
faced Jove. In all the years that came, the scars that those 
days wrought were not obliterated. 

When the injured man returned the job was lost, and he 
went from the shipping-port with brutal inconsequence. 

But Fate had not wearied of her puppet. He was yet to 
know the worst. 

Night and day he walked the streets, hungry and defiant. 
During the day he watched the world in its fevered haste, 
during the night he watched it in its restless sleep. He 
stood upon the corners looking over the blackness of closed 
tenements, or, walking to the arch of Brooklyn Bridge, 
watched the swelling tide of water, the flickering of the 
lights around the city, the islands dotting here and there 
the dusk. 

Among the tramps that thronged the bridge he loitered, 
as desperate as they. 

And at this time his mind and his life were forming. 
Circumstances were busy making the man ; the man was 
busy cursing circumstances. A rage that years could not 
cool consumed him. He looked with blood-shot eyes for 



THE DESCENDANT 31 

the cause of such a ghastly condition and, finding it, lifted 
against it the full force of his impassioned mind. It was 
not the man, but the system ! It was the system that he 
hated the system that suffered such things to be that 
protected oppression in the name of liberty, and injustice in 
the name of law. 

With the altered direction of his wrath, the early hatred 
for his parents melted away. He had found something 
vaster upon which to vent his undisciplined passion ; and 
with the larger hate the old childish one seemed dwarfed 
and lifeless. He saw in his parents now but victims to the 
existing order a machine which ground out millions of 
sentient beings and ground them into nothingness again. 
He even felt a half-tenderness for his mother and thought 
regretfully of the grave in the overgrown churchyard, with 
its red clay soil bare of bloom. He wondered how he could 
have thought of her save as wretched and bruised like him 
self, reviling the system that hemmed her down. He forgot, 
in his awakened sympathy, that she was but a woman of the 
fields, coarse and of great ignorance, into whose compre 
hension no system could have entered. 

On the eleventh evening he fainted in a public square, 
ami a woman of the street laid his head upon her lap 
and bathed his brow. He had come to life to see her 
bending over him, the street light flickering about her, 
revealing the paint upon her face and the dye upon her 
hair. 

But he had not known. He knew nothing of women and 
little of life. She seemed only kind and helpful to him, and 
as he staggered to his feet he thanked her. 

"You are good," he said. And the woman had been 
touched and turned to look at him. She saw his ignorance, 
which was innocence, and all the charity buried beneath a 
ruined virtue responded to his words. 

" You're starving," she said. And she slipped something 
into his hand and went her way, her harsh laughter softened 



32 THE DESCENDANT 

for a span. A man beside him had called after her a ribald 
jest, and Michael staggered up to him. 

" Do you know that lady ?" he asked. 

And the man laughed a coarse, loud laugh that pained 
his ears. 

Like a flash Michael understood, and he shook and quiv 
ered, red with humiliation. 

He turned away, stumbling blindly to his room. As one 
dazed by a sudden blow, he stood staring with hollow eyes 
at vacancy. For the first time he knew himself for what he 
was an outcast, and, with it all, he felt blindly his own 
impotence the quagmire in which he was floundering the 
depths to which his ambitions had sunk. 

And like a prophecy it broke upon him that it was a 
depth from which no man riseth. 

The hour of his degradation was complete. 

"To-day will end it," he said, and with calmness he went 
out to make his last throw to take his last chance at the 
hands of Fate. 

He bought an ounce of laudanum from a druggist at the 
corner. " How much do you want ?" the man asked, and 
Michael answered : 

"Oh, enough to kill a dog." The man looked at him 
curiously as he handed him the phial. 

Across the street was the sign, " Corned-beef and onions," 
and, going over, he spent his last dime at the counter. 

" I'll eat heartily," he thought ; " enough to live on or 
to die on." 

Leaving the restaurant, he walked aimlessly to his left. 
The crowd passed hurriedly around him. A woman let her 
bundle fall at his feet and he stooped to pick it up. After 
wards, in the midst of her stitching, she remembered the 
bitterness of his look. 

A group of bareheaded children darted in front of him, 
their arms interlaced. He looked at them attentively, not 
ing the red curls of one, the plaid frock of another. He 



THE DESCENDANT 33 

felt calmer than he had felt for days. The struggle was 
over, he had thrown up the game, and, when the end came, 
could resign from the competition. It mattered little. One 
nameless, homeless cur the less, that was all one clod 
the less to deter the footsteps of the coming generation, 
nothing more. 

And then he looked up and his eye fell upon a sign post 
ed upon a building across the way. He halted and read it : 

"MEN WANTED." 

Then he re-read it. It was not the first of such signs 
that he had seen. Others had meant failure, why not this ? 
Well, never matter. 

He crossed the street and went in at the office door. 
After waiting awhile a man came out and spoke to him. 
Yes, he might see the manager, he was within. And in the 
next room he found a jovial gentleman with a philanthropic 
cast of features, who put on his spectacles and asked him 
his name. 

"Michael Akershem." 

" Occupation ?" 

" None." 

" No trade ?" 

" No, sir ; I have just left the country." 

"What part?" 

" Virginia." 

"Why did you leave?" 

" I wanted to make my way." 

The gentleman smiled. He was of a, philanthropic cast 
of mind as well as cast of countenance. Only that morn 
ing he had donated a check of some thousands to be in 
vested in missionaries and other religious matter for the 
development of the Hottentots. His charity was universal. 
If it did not begin at home, at least it ended there, and his 
interest in his employe's was only second to his interest in 
the natives of Damaraland. 

3 



34 THE DESCENDANT 

" Respectable people ?" inquired the gentleman. 

Michael winced. 

" I don't know," he answered. " My mother died when 
I was born." 

" Your father ?" 

" I I don't know anything about him except " and the 
old childish spite overcame all his new-found theories, 
"except that he was a scoundrel." 

" Ah !" The gentleman tapped his spectacle-case reflec 
tively. " Bad blood," he muttered. " Bad blood." Then 
he looked at the man before him, strong of brow and of 
eye. 

" You see," he said, " we want only skilled workmen 
mechanics." 

"I can learn." 

"Yes, but unfortunately we cannot undertake to. teach 
you. I'm sorry, Mr. Mr. Akershin " 

Michael's hand had closed over the phial in his pocket. 
So this was how it must end. He had left the room when 
the gentleman called after him. 

" Hello !" he said. Michael turned. " You're an edu 
cated man, aren't you ?" 

"Yes." 

" Why don't you use your head ? There's a new paper 
The Iconoclast across the way. It has capital and it wants 
brains. Try that." And Michael tried. He looked for 
the sign, went into the office, and hesitated a moment be 
fore the city editor's door. 

" Come in !" said a voice. The editor put aside a paper, 
took his feet from his desk, and turned towards him. 
" What can I do for you ?" he asked. 

" Give me work." 

"Oh, indeed!" 

" I was sent here," said Michael, " by a man across the 
way. He said you wanted brains " 

"Oh, indeed !" said the editor. He was a tall man with 
shrewd eyes. The eyes twinkled. 



THE DESCENDANT 35 

" And you think you can supply my lack ?" he asked. 

"Yes." 

The editor looked up at him, saw the purpose in his face, 
caught the light of the eyes between their nervous blinking. 
There was power in the man, and he saw it. 

"We want bright heads," he said, "very bright ones. 
We want some one to take the existing order in hand and 
show it up. This is a free-thinking journal, you know. We 
endeavor to correct abuses " 

" Begin with the universe," said Michael. 

" And to throttle injustice " 

" Begin with humanity." 

"In short, to furnish an independent, readable, and as 
original a paper as is to be found on the market. As I tell 
you, we need bright heads " 

Then he looked up and caught the impassioned glance. 
" I'll try you," he said. " Walk into the next room j you'll 
find the foreman." 

And Michael walked in. 



BOOK II 
THE INDIVIDUAL 

" Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits 
of the world." Schopenhauer. 



CHAPTER I 

A MAN passed along South Fifth Avenue and entered the 
Chat Noir. Finding the tables filled, he frowned impatient 
ly and fell back against the door. Then, as a waiter passed, 
with a tray in his hand, he spoke. " Put me anywhere," he 
said; "I'm in a hurry." 

The waiter looked up, recognized him, and nodded. 
" Good-evening, sir," he said. " In a moment." He led 
him down the room to a platform at the rear end, and as 
cending the steps gave him a seat at one of the tables. 

As the man sat down several persons turned to look at 
him. He was lithe and squarely built, with a maze of 
rough, dark hair, a prominent brow, and nervous eyes. 

" There are brains for you," said an artist in a threadbare 
coat to his companion. " Look at his brow. That man 
has the head of a genius." 

"And the hair as well," answered his companion, who 
was fair and florid. " On the principle that * a genius his 
hair never combs.' Is that the fact from which you gen 
eralize ?" 

"Pish!" retorted the other. "Read his leaders and 
you'll see. He has created an epoch in journalism. Why, 
the man has the power of an Ibsen and the audacity as 
well. He leaves nothing unassailed. He has a genius for 
destroying. If he has a sentiment, one needs a microscope 
to find it. His lectures on Social Lies, you know, fairly set 
society ablaze. By Jove, it's genius, and, what's better, it 
pays, which, I happen to know, all genius doesn't do. I'd 
change places with him to-night, hair and all, damn me if 
I wouldn't! It's better than painting landscapes at ten dol 
lars a gross and no demand." 



40 THE DESCENDANT 

"Waiter!" his companion was saying, "chops for one! 
Mind you, I didn't say one chop, I said chops for one. Be 
quick, please. Oh, your man ! Yes, as you say, painting 
doesn't pay. I've * A Pair of Loves ' at my studio for which 
I asked five hundred a year ago, and, by Jove, I'd knock it 
off for fifty to-night if I got the chance. The age of art has 
gone by, the age of action has commenced." 

" It's an age of small things," admitted the first, sadly. 
He was gazing pensively at the frieze of black cats around 
the ceiling. " I'm profoundly convinced that it is an age of 
small things. From the age of dollars I have passed to the 
age of cents, from the age of chicken to the age of chops " 

"Be warned by a poor devil and stop before you arrive at 
the singular," said the other. " In me behold one who has 
reached an age of chop or, to be exact, an age of quarter 
ounce mutton, two ounce bone The devil ! Your man's 
mad !" 

The man in question had turned sharply to speak to 
some one who was leaning over his chair. His face had 
paled and a deep vein across his forehead was swollen and 
livid. 

" And, if I did write it," he demanded, " does it concern 
you, sir?" 

" Only in this," said the other, soothingly, " that I can't 
understand how a man of your judgment can wilfully give 
i \pression to such a a string of falsehoods." 

" Ah, is that all ?" The man turned slowly away, filling 
his glass with white wine. "Really, I can't be made 
responsible for your lack of understanding," he said. 
" Waiter ! oysters, please." 

He went quietly on with his dinner. A girl across the 
room was smiling at him between the spoonfuls of her soup, 
but he did not notice. He ate his oysters slowly, with de 
liberation, his gaze abstracted, one hand playing nervously 
with the crackers beside his plate. Once he paused to 
stroke the black cat that rubbed against his knee. 

The threadbare artist and his companion had gone out. 






THE DESCENDANT 41 

A gentleman in a gray shooting- jacket had taken their 
places, accompanied by a lady with beautiful glistening hair. 
She moved with a slow Delsartean action, as actresses do 
before they have become artists. 

" Yes, it has been a trying day," said the lady, speaking 
with a strong Southern accent. " I did not dream that an 
actress's life could be such drudgery. And the hardest les 
son one has to learn, harder than all the lines, is how to be 
an actress and a lady, too. Really, it takes all one's time. 
And one is thrown with such common people, too ; it is so 
so" 

" So humiliating," suggested the gentleman. 

"Yes, it is quite humiliating. And that dreadful man 
ager ! Why, I saw him, with my own eyes, kiss a chorus 
girl behind the scenes last night. If I had dreamed of such 
outrageous things, I'm sure I should never have left home. 
I mightn't have been famous, but I should, at least, have 
been respectable and I am getting to believe that the two 
are opposed. No ! no wine, thank you !" 

" So you regret your step ?" 

" Well, hardly that, but I regret that I don't regret it." 
The lady sighed, putting up her hand to smooth her beau 
tiful hair. Presently her gaze wandered over the room and 
she spoke more rapidly, her eyes growing bright and wide. 
" Why," she said, " isn't that the editor of The Iconoclast ? 
There over there in the corner ?" 

The gentleman followed the direction of her glance. " So 
it is," he said. " Akershem, you know, created quite a stir, 
hasn't he?" 

" Indeed, yes," assented the lady, drawing on her long 
gloves. " But don't you think him rather wicked ? Think 
of the things he has said about society and religion and 
marriage." 

" Brilliant fellow, though," suggested the gentleman. 

" Brilliant ? Yes, I suppose so. But I haven't read his 
articles. I wouldn't for anything. I fear he's one of the 
powers for evil." 



44 THE DESCENDANT 

" For pleasure ?" asked Michael, with a laugh. 

"Yes, for pleasure. I tell you I haven't been bored a 
day since I took up reform." Then he seemed to gather 
all his enthusiasm, bringing it to a focus. It was as if he 
lashed himself into fanaticism for the pleasure of it. "We 
shall accomplish a great work," he said. " Watch the prog 
ress. Society shall shiver, shall totter, shall come down 
with a crash. We will erect a new one upon the ashes of 
the old. We will make freedom the watchword and equality 
the law. Liberte ' ! Egalite ! Fraternite ! We shall win a 
great victory. Our children and our children's children 
shall live to see the triumph of our cause, and, in the midst 
of their prosperity, shall rise up and call us blessed." 

Michael was listening, his face flushed, all traces of bit 
terness gone. His lips were apart, his head thrown back in 
the old childish fashion. His breath came quickly; the 
glare of his nervous eyes was almost blinding. "We will 
do it," he said. " Society is a fetich, upon whose altar hu 
man beings are sacrificed. We will tear it down." 

" In time," said the other. " Give us time. We will 
prove that liberty glorious liberty is the only birthright 
worth possessing, and that it is the equal birthright of all. 
Sweep away poverty and you have swept away crime. 
Make men happy and you make them holy. Oh, humanity 
will become a fine thing yet no more class robbery, no 
more drudgery of women and children no more laws bind 
ing two human beings together for all time no more room 
for immorality and injustice. A man shall have equal op 
portunity as the son of a millionaire or a mechanic " He 
stopped suddenly, the enthusiasm dying from his fair, flushed 
face, the strained fanaticism in the eyes giving place to the 
habitual gleam of good-humor. " But, enough of this," he 
said; "tell me about yourself. How long have you been 
in the editor's chair?" 

" Two years." 

"And with the paper seven. Ah, you've done well. 
You're young yet, however, and you may temper down. 



THE DESCENDANT 45 

Half the conservatives of to-day were reformers in their 
youth. You may change." 

" Never !" said Michael, and he said it hotly, fixing upon 
the other his blinking eyes. 

" Oh, well," said Semple, " time will show. But how's 
your staff? A good one, I suppose. And Driscoll, the 
former editor ; where's he ?" 

Akershem's face brightened. " He gave it up," he an 
swered. " It was a great loss. His health gave out and he 
grew conservative. He said the profession of sensational 
ism wrecked his nerves. He got tired of pie and civiliza 
tion. One, he said, had given him dyspepsia, the other 
blue devils. So he went to try a state of simple nature in 
Florida, on an orange farm. I haven't heard from him 
lately. I guess the freeze down there brought him to his 
senses." 

" He was a fine fellow that man." 

" Fine ! He was the only man I ever knew worth bow 
ing to." 

Semple laughed good-naturedly. " Cynicism is a sure 
sign of youth," he said. 

" Not cynicism," returned Michael. " I've passed that. 
" Life is like an apple. It has three stages, first, the rind, 
which is sour cynicism ; next, the pulp, which is sweet 
optimism ; and thirdly, the core, which is rotten pessi 
mism. Well I've tried the first. I skipped the second, and 
I'm pretty well into the third." 

The room was less crowded. Some of the tables were 
vacant. At the one across from them a girl was sitting 
alone. She wore a loose artist's blouse of black cloth with 
a rolling collar of white and a small cap of some rough 
material. In her hand she held a drawing-block and a 
pencil. 

" There's a woman of the time," said Semple, suddenly, 
nodding his head in her direction. "As independent a 
young person as is to be found in New York Miss Gavin ; 
do you know her ?" 



42 THE DESCENDANT 

The man had unbuttoned his coat and his loose tennis 
blouse, open at the throat, was visible. The tables were 
crowded now. In the centre of the room and about the 
door a line had formed waiting for vacated seats. Near the 
door a group of merry young fellows were gathered about a 
table. They were laughing and passing wine with boyish 
good-humor. 

" Here's to to-morrow," said one, " and the evil it doesn't 
bring." 

" Here's to the job it does bring," added another. 

" How many goes to-day, Bob ?" asked a third. 

" Eight in all. Began with The Herald and ended with 
By Jove ! I've forgotten the name." 

" There's Debbins over there," said one. " He's on The 
World, they say." 

"And there's Akershem of The Iconoclast there's your 
chance. Go it, Bob." 

" And get my nose bitten off for my pains. He's about 
as amiable as the devil's wife on a wash day." 

" I heard a jolly story about him the other day," said a 
young fellow with a snub- nose. " Symonds went to him 
for work. You know Symonds, the fellow with the grand 
father who did something of some sort. Well, Symonds 
was hauling out his recommendations. ' I'm of first-rate 
people, sir,' he said. ' My grandfather was ' and Akers 
hem broke in with: 'What in thunder have I to do with 
your grandfather ? He may have been the devil, for aught 
I care. I don't want to adopt you,' and he didn't give him 
the job, either. ' I've no doubt many papers would be glad 
to get you, Mr. Symonds,' he said, 'on your grandfather's 
account,' and he ushered him out." 

"He 's a temper of his own," said the first one, "and a 
head, too ; but that Billy Summers on his staff worships the 
ground he walks on. He says Akershem raised him from 
the gutter to glory." 

And Akershem went quietly on with his dinner, his gaze 
abstracted, his square, beardless face bent over his plate. 



THE DESCENDANT 43 

He was young, not more than six-and-twenty. He was old, 
for he had lived much during those six-and-twenty years. 

Suddenly he paused, looked up, and bowed in response 
to a gentleman who had seated himself across from him. 
He was a stout man of some forty odd years, with thin, fair 
hair and clear-cut features. His eyes rested upon Michael 
and their pupils contracted in puzzled scrutiny. They were 
humorous eyes, light and clear of vision. " I beg your par 
don," he began, then hesitated. "Are you Mr. Michael 
Akershem of The Iconoclast?' 

" I am." There was an aggressive defiance in Aker- 
shem's retort. 

"And I am Semple Hedley Semple you have heard 
of me?" 

" Heard of you !" A smile passed over his face like 
gleams of sunshine across a cloud. " Heard of you ? Why, 
I've heard you a dozen times, but I thought you were lect 
uring abroad." 

"So I was; but 'he who fights and runs away,' you 
know. I talked the German public mad in a month, the 
English in a week, and the French in exactly two hours and 
forty minutes. The American public, being a gigantic 
mongrel, I expect to have it hooting at my heels before the 
month's up. But you're doing a great reform work. Read 
your leaders this morning. So marriage is not a failure, but 
a fake, is it ? Oh, but I wished for you across the water ! 
I'd a poor chance of fight sometimes, but on social reform 
I got the people, the aristocracy sitting by and kicking its 
heels." 

Michael laughed. " That's all it is good for," he said. 
" An aristocrat is a man who sits down to think about what 
his grandfather has done while other men are doing some 
thing themselves." 

" Oh, but it's a great work," said Semple. " It infuses an 
interest into a man. One need never fear etinui when one 
has a purpose to serve. A man who hasn't a cause to fight 
for should invent one." 



46 THE DESCENDANT 

"No ! I don't like women." 

" She is a type." 

" I detest types of women. I never saw but one, and 
that was the fool type." 

" Fie ! shame on you ! Well, she's a genius, they say. 
Had some fine things at the Oil Exhibition last spring. 
Took the medal. She has made a god of her art, I'm told. 
An interesting woman and a strange one." 

" A strange one indeed." Michael had turned and was 
looking across at her. She was of medium height, slight, 
but with broad, straight shoulders and an independent, half- 
audacious carriage of the head. The cap had slipped to 
one side, showing the backward wave of the dark hair that 
was coiled low on the nape of the neck, and giving her a 
slightly defiant appearance. Her face was oval and some 
what sallow, with a firm chin, and a nose squarely cut at 
the tip. Her eyes were gray, deeply set in the sockets, and 
with a black shadow thrown across them by the lashes 
but gray most decidedly a clear, deep gray like the moun 
tains when a storm is near. They were eyes that suggested 
the possibility of a smile. When grave, her face was set 
and strongly marked, without a trace of color except the 
thin line of the lips, and almost overshadowed by the 
straight black eyebrows. 

She was feeding the cat with bits of partridge from her 
plate, stroking its head with one large, ungloved hand. 

" A strange woman, indeed," Michael had said. 

" I'll wager she'll make a success of whatever she under 
takes," said Semple. " If art, so much the better ; if love, 
so much the worse." Then he started. "By Jove," he 
said, " she's sketching you. It can't be me No ! it's 
you." 

The girl had rested her block upon the table, and was 
busily applying her pencil to it, her gaze passing from the 
paper to Michael and back to the paper again. 

" Cool!" he muttered, " but she's welcome to it. May it 
do her more good than it's done me." 



THE DESCENDANT 47 

Semple rose. " It's a pity to disappoint the young wom 
an," he said, "but wounded vanity pricks, and, since she's 
selected you, I'm off. I've an engagement in twenty min 
utes. I'll look in at the office to-morrow. By-the-bye, I 
want you to meet my wife." 

" Your wife ?" said Michael. He recoiled as though some 
one had struck him between the eyes. He felt dazed. 
" Your wife ?" he repeated, " why, I I thought you you 
were an opponent of marriage." 

" Oh ! that's different. I am of marriage of marriage 
in general, you know. But my wife she's such a fine wom 
an such a deuced fine woman. You must meet her. Good 
bye." 

He had gone, and Michael pushed his glass aside and 
rose. He felt a crushing sense of disappointment. Here 
was a man who held publicly the most advanced views of 
the day, and who privately Was it lack of principle or 
lack of policy ? 

Then his gaze fell on the girl across from him, and he 
went boldly over to where she sat, his brilliant glance fix 
ing her like magnetism. 

" You are sketching me," he said. 

The girl looked up and frowned. Then the corners of 
her mouth went up, the lines about her eyes dimpled, and 
her straight brows arched. She was provokingly mirthful. 
"A study if you please," she said, "for John the Baptist 
as he left the wilderness, of course." The promise of her 
smile was fulfilled. Then her lips fell and grew prim, a 
gray cloud hid the stars in her eyes, the dimples from the 
corners fled. She frowned. 

Michael looked gravely down upon her. He was al 
ways grave. There was a certain interest in watching the 
changes in her mobile face, the quick play of thought 
across her sensitive features. He wanted to make her 
angry and see the flash come out in her eyes. There was 
a delicious danger in playing with the fire of her glance. 
He desired and feared to meet its level brilliance. 



48 THE DESCENDANT 

" You might have asked my permission," he said ; " but 
since you didn't, I'll grant it anyway. Turn about is fair 
play. I'll walk home with you." Then he drew slightly 
back and looked at her, waiting with a cynical amusement 
to see the effect of his words. 

The girl rose quietly, gathered up her wraps, found her 
gloves, and paused to turn the ringers right side out. She 
picked up her drawing-block from the table. Very deliber 
ately she tore off the outer leaf, and, tearing it in half, let it 
fall lightly to the floor. Then she raised her eyes to his 
face. The corners of her lips curved upward in their deli 
cious way, showing all the sharp, white teeth. With a pro 
voking air of bravado she passed him, looking back over 
her shoulder to throw a humorous glance. 

" St. John was hardly worth it," she said. " I'm as much 
as I can look after, thank you," and she passed away from 
him and out into the street. 



CHAPTER II 

AND this was Michael Akershem ! 

As he passed along under the glimmer of the electric 
light, he almost laughed to himself at the thought laughed 
impersonally as a stranger might have done. 

This was Michael Akershem. 

This the bare-footed child in Virginia, chasing the pigs 
from the cornfield, submitting to the harsh railings of the 
farmer's wife, choking with suppressed rage and gnawing 
bitterness. This the lad growing up under the minister's 
eye, pried after by the village women, badgered by the vil 
lage boys. This the man who walked these same streets 
seven years ago, hungry, sore, and homeless, asking only the 
hire of a common laborer, ready to toil in the shops or in 
the foundery, passionate, alert, and spurred onward by the 
lash of unsatisfied ambition. 

And to-day this was Michael Akershem. Strong, fear 
less, and fired by an unfaltering will. His hand against 
every man still, and every man's hand against him, but the 
single hand no mere wavering fist of a farmer's hireling 
but a hand, powerful and heavy of grasp, mighty and sure 
to wound. The years of labor had set their mark upon 
him, had stamped the lines of self - sufficiency upon his 
brow, as they had graven the expression of habitual bitter 
ness about his mouth. He owed the world nothing. His 
success he had earned by the sweat of his brow, with a 
brain which had ached like a madman's and yet toiled on. 
The bread which he ate was the bread of independence, the 
bread of his own plodding youth, the bread which separated 
him from all claim from his fellows. The world and he 
were at odds. He had gained nothing from it that it had 



50 THE DESCENDANT 

not begrudged him, and had he his will it should gain noth 
ing from him until it gained his dust to enrich the earth. 

As for men and women, they were but moving atoms 
burlesques of what might have been had Nature been less 
of a niggard. For him they had only distrust; for them 
he had only jeers. They could distrust ; well, he could af 
ford to despise. They could upbraid; well, he could sneer. 
It was all one to him ; he had known nothing else from his 
birth, and he expected to know nothing else until his death. 
The sins of men must have scapegoats. He was a scape 
goat ; but he could rebel, and rebel he did. 

The force of his wrath he spent upon the one vulnerable 
point. His genius for invective was expended where its 
effects were most sweeping. He could not reach one man, 
thousands he could. He could not assail the individual, 
the system he could. 

Like a torrent he bore down upon the objects of his re 
sentment. The genius which might have created was ex 
erted to destroy. The brilliancy which might have won 
love was given in hate. The strength which might have 
ennobled could only embitter. He had suffered, and 
against the things whereby he had suffered his voice was 
lifted. Had his life been otherwise, the strength might 
have been welded to gentleness, the courage to humanity. 
But otherwise it had not been. Circumstances are mighty 
and man is weak. The wheel of the potter grinds on and 
the clay is moulded into symmetry or distorted by mishap. 
If it is misshapen by the mishap and regains not its rounded 
form, is it the fault of the potter or of the clay ? 

And Michael rallied. Brilliant, bitter, hated and hating, 
stirred by a restless, untempered energy which sought cease 
lessly its outlet. With swift, fire- tinctured blood and a 
nature never at peace, he carried on his impotent revolt. 

He walked briskly along with swinging strides, passing 
under the shifting shadows cast by the electric light. He 
was thinking, his fevered, over-active brain bearing down 
upon the past and dissecting it as with a microscope. Sort- 



THE DESCENDANT 51 

ing the years, one by one, and throwing some aside to a 
mental rubbish heap, and labelling some and laying them 
away, and fastening upon some his keen regard as for the 
moment's use. 

With all the salient irregularity of face and figure, it was 
more as a personality that he impressed one than as a per 
son ; more as a mind than as a man ; more as a will than 
as a body. A subtle, illusive, yet trenchant quality which 
enforced submission or inspired resistance. The friction of 
an abnormal nature against normal ones. And in the fric 
tion the emphasis of his personality was made manifest ; 
the conscious predominance of the psychical existence. 
Reaching the office, he let himself in with a latch-key, light 
ed the lamp, and began his night's work. He was prepar 
ing the sheets for the morning press. 

He worked steadily with that unwearied, absorbed appli 
cation which is the surest warrant of success. Occasionally 
he would glance up, his brilliant gaze abstracted, his brow 
ruffled. Then the thought would be run down and captured 
and he would work on with his restless pen. At two o'clock 
he rose, put out the lamp, let himself out, and went home. 

For seven years he had done such work. 

The next day while Akershem worked at his desk a rap 
sounded at the office door. He glanced up sharply. The 
door was labelled "private," and was supposed to be so. 
He detested interruptions. 

" Come in," he said, curtly. 

The door swung open and a man entered, a tall man with 
heavy brows and delightful eyes light, shrewd, quick-sight 
ed eyes, with twinkles in their pupils. 

Like a flash Michael was upon him. 

" Why, Driscoll, old man, it's too good to be true ! When 
did you come ? Where did you come from ? Are you back 
for good ?" 

" Hold on, Shem you don't mind, Shem, do you? it's so 
convenient wait a minute and I'll take you down in order. 
First, when did I come ? Answer, exactly nineteen and 



52 THE DESCENDANT 

one-half minutes ago by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Sec 
ondly, where did I come from ? Answer, from a place 
known to the natives as the Sunny South South literally, 
Sunny by courtesy. Thirdly, am I back for good? An 
swer, dubious, judging from the state of my pocketbook; I 
fear I'm back for bad." 

He had taken Michael's vacated seat, swinging his feet 
upon the desk with a leisurely action. As he did so he dis 
placed the papers upon which Akershem had been working. 

" Pick them up, Shem," he said, " there's a good fellow. 
You haven't been to Florida and gotten rheumatism. This 
is a confounded habit of mine, I know, but it's inherited. I 
got it from my father, who contracted it in South America 
when he lived in a tent with some centipedes. But go on, 
my young fanatic. What have you been doing ? What, I 
mean, besides coveting your neighbor's goods ? Aren't you 
tired of using society as a football ? Why don't you give 
it up ? Get out of the profession of sensationalism, or turn 
conservative. In these degenerate days it's the only party 
in which a man doesn't get his brains jammed into jelly 
with all the rest ! We'll bring out a respectable paper of 
some kind, with domestic advice to dutiful wives and a col 
umn for correspondents and recipes for plum-pudding and 
gooseberry jam. I'll even offer to take the correspondence 
off your hands ; think of that " 

" But, Driscoll, what about the orange farm ?" 

"My dear Shem, I can tell you a lot about the farm. 
Walked that over in two days, but I know deuced little 
about the oranges. There was a rumor up here to the 
effect that there was a grove on the place, but I didn't see 
it, though I examined every shrub through field-glasses. 

" Well, a freeze came and it took my neighbors' oranges, 
and, in default of oranges, it took me. I contracted rheu 
matism, so here I am. By Jove, I used to get bored down 
there. There was no fishing, and the only sport I had was 
hunting in the pond for tadpoles, chasing them under a 
rotten log and catching them by the tails. There was a 



THE DESCENDANT 



53 



small darky who used to join me. We got sixty-nine one 
day, and didn't let one get away. Then I read your dia 
tribes and saw that you needed the check rein, so I came 
back. My dear Shem, you are making the mistake of be 
ing in earnest. Nobody should be in earnest, it is bad 
form. Theories are meant for playthings ; if you use them 
as weapons, they go to pieces and cut you." 

Akershem laughed. 

"That's a fact, Shem; the only successful reformer is 
the one who never attempts to put his reforms into prac 
tice. They're the men the world goes mad over while it 
stones their tools." 

" I was born to be stoned." 

"Nonsense ! don't give Fate a chance to rile you. Provi 
dence has to be hoodwinked. If you want to get anything 
in this world, turn to wanting something else, and ten 
chances to one the first will come only you won't 
want it." 

" Any more moralizing at my expense ?" 

" Lots. You need it. You have gone and made society 
a bugbear, and now you're trying to bully it. Let it alone. 
People aren't half as big fools as they look, and, anyway, 
it's no concern of yours. If men choose to erect idols in 
the market-place, why should you trouble to tear them 
down? A sensible man doesn't do that a sensible man 
is wild, wicked, stupid, if you will, but he is never in earnest. 
He knows that if society is rotten he can't purify it by 
poking and prying, but will only succeed in soiling his 
hands in the filth. Let the world alone and it'll let you 
alone." 

" But it hasn't let me alone and I won't let it. I'll pro 
test against it with my dying breath. I was talking to 
Semple last night" 

" Semple !" said Driscoll, " Hedley Semple ! He's a man 
who is playing with edged tools. I tell you what is play to 
him is death to you. He talks his views, but you live 
yours. That's wrong. Theories have nothing to do with 



54 THE DESCENDANT 

life ; they are to be talked about, that's all. Make it play, 
Shem, don't" 

Then he broke off with a laugh. 

" I'm getting in earnest myself," he said, " which I don't 
do on principle. My state of simple nature, you see, has 
cultivated in me the simplicity of primitive man. It is the 
only life worth leading, after all. This vast machine of 
nervous energy called civilization is demoralizing. It keeps 
the brain at fever heat and produces vertigo. It destroys 
individuality. Quit it, my dear Shem ; you need rest. 
Leave politics, the tariff, the currency, and all the other 
fruits of perdition alone. The currency is the devil's own 
institution for making maniacs of men. I recognize his 
stamp." 

" Don't be an ass, Driscoll. I know what I'm doing." 

"The deuce 'you do ! I never saw a reformer who did. 
They might be classified as a distinct species having eyes 
in the back of their heads." 

"You've managed to readjust yours, I see." 

"Ah, well, a young sinner makes an old Solomon. There 
is nothing so profitable to a philosopher as the sins of his 
youth." 

" Or so confoundedly pedantic as the repentance of his 
age." 

" Quit it, Shem ! Run down to Florida for a bit. Six 
weeks spent with that delightfully uncivilized small darky 
will raise your respect for humanity exactly twenty degrees. 
It did for me. I assure you, when I left here I was in 
clined to look upon mankind as an unmitigated failure. 
After my first introduction to him I began to think that it 
wasn't such a bad case, after all. And when I saw him 
sitting in a watermelon patch, eating out of the rind quite 
like the natural man, I felt that, take the high pressure of 
civilization away, humanity might be a first-rate thing. 
Then he taught me to fish for tadpoles, and, by Jove " 
He rose suddenly and lounged over to the window. "It 
makes me homesick," he said, " such a bully day for the 



THE DESCENDANT 55 

sport, too. I shouldn't be surprised to hear that he'd 
caught the can full." Then he picked up his hat and was 
making off. " Come out with rne, Shem. I've half prom 
ised to look in at the water-color exhibition. Nevins wants 
me to stand sponsor for his 'Mother's Plague' or some 
such nonsense. Come !" 

Michael yielded. He seldom withstood Driscoll. " The 
work may go," he said. " It's your work, anyway. But for 
you I shouldn't be in the world to - day," he added, awk 
wardly. 

Driscoll laughed as he swung open the door. " Spare 
me, my good fellow," he said, "don't don't shove such 
a responsibility upon me. So I am the unconscious instru 
ment of your evil fate ?" 

At the Academy Michael loitered about while Driscoll 
went in pursuit of " The Mother's Plague " and its creator. 
Presently he came back. " Confound it," he said, " I can't 
find the thing. What does a man want to make such a 
fool of himself, anyway, as to paint plagues. There're 
enough of them in real life. By-the-bye, have you seen the 
gem of the exhibition ? It's that gray thing over there by 
Rachel Gavin a study of dawn. Ah ! there is Miss Gavin 
herself before it." 

Michael turned. It was the girl of the evening before, 
flannel blouse, yachting-cap, and all. The same prominent, 
sensitive features, the same wide mouth with its long curl 
ing upper-lip, the same eyes with the purple shadows under 
them as though worked in with India-ink. The same im 
passioned, brooding, concentrated expression. The same 
evanescent passage of thought across the mouth and eyes. 
She was alone, her drawing-block under her arm, her pencil 
in her ungloved hand. 

As Michael looked she knelt before a picture which had 
been hung near the floor. 

" When she gets up," said Driscoll, " she will know how 
every stroke was put in. Nothing escapes her. It's pluck 
that girl has, and to spare. For man or woman it is no joke 



56 THE DESCENDANT 

to work ten hours a day at an easel, but she has done it. 
If you'll wait a moment I'll speak to her." 

He crossed the room, and Michael saw him bend above 
the kneeling figure. 

" At your shrine, as usual, Miss Gavin," he said. The 
girl glanced up, rose, and held out her hand. She spoke, 
but Michael did not catch her words. 

Presently Driscoll came back. 

" I asked her about the ' Plague,' " he said, " and she says 
she'll look out for it. By-the-bye " He stopped, for the 
girl was at his elbow. " Oh, Mr. Driscoll," she said, " I've 
found it. It's over there in the corner, behind the ' Peach- 
tree.' " 

She spoke rapidly, gliding over her vowels with a soft, 
Southern accent. 

" And since you've discovered it," said Driscoll, " will you 
kindly unfold to me its merits or demerits? By-the-bye, 
you won't mind knowing Akershem, Miss Gavin. He is 
simply dying to meet you. He hasn't said so, but he has 
looked it. You have much in common, I've no doubt. You 
paint, and he well, he would like to if he could, only he 
can't, you know." 

" Oh ! 'The Mother's Plague.' Now, really, will you tell 
me if that chest of drawers is well done or if it is not ? I'm 
not asking out of idle curiosity, mind you. I have to write 
an article about it and I want to know." 

Up went the sensitive corners of the girl's mouth, and the 
fine lines about the eyes came into play. Michael thought 
he had never seen anything so delightful as the way in 
which these irregular little eye dimples came and went, 
he put up her hand and brushed a stray lock of hair from 
hi/r temple, fastening it by means of a tiny hairpin into the 
dark coil behind. "That depends," she said. "Do you 
speak of Art or Nature ? For Nature I should consider it 
somewhat too ethereal. In fact, a chest of drawers liable 
to become absorbed in the surrounding atmosphere. For 
Art well, it is a conscientious sacrifice of form to color." 



THE DESCENDANT 



57 



"Well," said Driscoll, "that shows the use of an inquir 
ing mind. Now, if I hadn't asked your opinion I should 
have strongly suspected my friend Nevins of being guilty of 
a daub." 

" It is well hung," said Michael, hastily. " It has an ex 
cellent foil in those bananas to your right." 

Then he became conscious of having said an awkward 
thing, for a young fellow near him blushed hotly and sham 
bled off. 

The girl frowned, with an imperious wrinkling of her 
brow. Then she slipped past him in bold pursuit of the 
departing figure of the young man. "Oh, Mr. Buttons!" 
she called. He turned and came eagerly towards her. 

"I have just noticed your fruit!" she said. "Do come 
and tell me how you worked in those shadows. I am dy 
ing to know." 

The young fellow grew radiant, then flushed scarlet, and 
together they leaned over the picture. Driscoll drew back 
and laughed. 

" That is like her," he said. " She wouldn't hurt the lad 
for worlds. He is as sensitive as a baby. I remember her 
cutting him upon the street one day and then running a 
block to apologize. I reminded her at the time that she 
had cut Stetherson as well, and she laughed and said, ' Oh, 
that is different. That doesn't matter ; he has left off 
painting bananas, you know.'" 

" It is like me, too," said Michael, gloomily. " I never 
had a trace of manners in my life, and, what's more, I never 
expect to have any ; and, what's more, I don't care a a 
a" 

" Don't excite yourself, my dear fellow. It doesn't mat 
ter. By to-morrow she will have forgotten all about it, and 
about you, too. Well, let's be off. By-the-bye, where are 
you staying now ? Old place ?" 

" No. I have taken apartments in the Templeton. Come 
up this evening and give me a room-warming. I've just 
moved in." 



58 THE DESCENDANT 

" Oh, the Templeton ! I believe that's where Miss Gavin 
is. You're neighbors. Well, I'll dine with you to-night, 
somewhere. At your rooms? so much the better." 

He swung leisurely across to the avenue, and Michael 
went back to the office. 



CHAPTER III 

PEOPLE said it was a pity that John Driscoll had thrown 
himself away. John Driscoll said that he might have done 
something great if he had not preferred doing nothing. 
However that may be, for greatness is relative, and Dris 
coll was hardly the best judge, the fact that he had never 
done anything was indisputable, the theory that he might 
have done something untenable and easily assailed. As 
every man who has not written a play, recklessly proving 
his inability, is convinced that he could write one if he only 
chose, so every man who has not made desperate throws at 
success is equally convinced that it is a matter of choice. 
It is only after one has striven and strewn the path of 
balked ambition with bloody sweat that the mocking finger 
of Failure may be pointed and may hurt. He is a wise 
man who has not fallen because he has not climbed. " As 
long as it's my own fault that I'm a failure," said Driscoll, 
" I don't care ; if it had been the fault of Providence I'd 
have been blamed mad." 

At college he had been noted for his versatility and his 
vacillation. He had picked up Latin and Greek as one 
picks up the alphabet, had plodded away at Sanscrit with 
marked success ; had wearied of the classics and turned to 
law. In a year he had taken his B. L. and satiety, but, in 
stead of leaving college, he had thrown himself with a fe 
verish zest into natural science, and finally, when he left for 
a naturalist's voyage to South America, he carried with him 
the enthusiastic commendations of the faculty and the 
paternal blessing of the chair of biology. 

For several years the promise seemed approaching ful 
filment ; he was heard from constantly, and the scientific re- 



l 
60 THE DESCENDANT 

views carried his name. He brought out a. small work upon 
South American Sea Urchins, and later another upon Rudi 
mentary Nervous Systems. Then for a time he was lost sight 
of, and just as the American biologists were beginning to 
look for a more ambitious venture from their promising dis 
ciple, there appeared upon the literary market the first vol 
ume of what seemed to be a work of widely comprehensive 
scope entitled Ethnic Affinities. The book bore the name 
of John Driscoll. Ethnologists applauded and looked eager 
ly forward to the completion of the survey, but no second 
volume was forthcoming, although John Driscoll himself was. 
Quite unexpectedly he loomed upon the horizon, interested, 
interesting, and alert. 

" Oh, my Ethnic Affinities ! I've given that up long ago," 
he said. " It is all bosh, you know. What is the use of 
pottering about among pots and kettles and customs ?" He 
mingled in society for a while, becoming easily the idol of 
the hour ; then he arranged and executed an expedition in 
the direction of what is supposed to be the North Pole. 

At the end of three months he was found and brought 
home by a rescuing party, and after a long illness he put 
aside science and went into politics. But he was indepen 
dent, and independence is often out of place, and always 
out of office. He wrote clever, keen-sighted articles against 
the Republican Administration, and voted the Democratic 
ticket ; then the Democrats came in and he saw their errors 
as clearly as he had seen the errors of their opponents. The 
articles against the Democratic Administration were just as 
clever and just as keen-sighted, and he voted the Republi 
can ticket. 

" Must I blindfold myself because of party principles ?" 
he asked, and he wrote against them one and all. He got 
disgusted with the government and became a Socialist. The 
Socialists welcomed him with acclamations and triumphant 
cheers, but upon nearer inspection he perceived the defects 
in the platform and he made clever, sarcastic "copy" out 
of them for the magazines. He wrote for the party, but he 



THE DESCENDANT 6l 

wrote against the party errors, and the party got mad, as 
was highly proper. They charged him with being a traitor, 
and a battle ensued. 

Then a wealthy syndicate purchased The Labor Gazette, 
rechristened it The Iconoclast, backed its success with an 
array of cool millions, and offered Mr. Driscoll the leader 
ship. Mr. Driscoll accepted. It was a new opening, a 
chance for some skilful pioneering, difficulties to clear away 
and a path to hew out. It represented a change, and he 
liked it. For five years he stuck to it faithfully. At first 
he infused new life into the journal ; he made it clever, 
humorous, candid ; but it held no convictions, it followed no 
party, it wavered incessantly. For six months it preached 
the boldest radicalism, when the quick, scrutinizing glance 
saw the faults upon its own side, the good upon its oppo 
nents'. He veered round, and the orthodox party raised a 
thanksgiving over the conversion. He soon deserted them 
and followed the Socialists ; he took to admonishing the 
Socialists, and they objected. The end was a combat royal 
between The Iconoclast and all organized parties. 

People said that it was lack of principle, but it was not. 
Too much principle is often more harmful than too little. 
He had too much honesty to say what he did not believe, a 
bad thing in political life ; and he was too quick-sighted 
not to perceive a rotten core because he happened to have 
eaten the apple. 

" You have no settled convictions," said a friend to him 
one day. " A serious fault." 

" Confound convictions," retorted Driscoll ; " they are al 
ways getting in the way of opportunities. The only con 
victions a man of sense should entertain are those that ad 
just themselves to circumstances." 

" Pshaw !" said his friend. " The opportunities you've 
thrown away would have made forty men, had they picked 
them up." 

"No doubt," assented Driscoll; "but they would have 
been deuced bored in the making." 



62 THE DESCENDANT 

And then, when he had wearied of The Iconoclast, and had 
left it to wither away while he worked out A Theory of Dy 
namics, the door opened and Michael Akershem appeared. 

Reckless, energetic, impassioned, ready to throw heart 
and brain into the cause, Driscoll hailed him as a new and 
powerful element. As Michael Akershem warmed to the 
work Driscoll felt the load slipping from his own wearied 
shoulders. 

" Here is the channel," said Driscoll, "for your bitterness 
and brilliancy. Rail at society. I do not think it can hurt 
you, and I'm quite sure it will not hurt society. You're the 
right man in the right place. You aren't cursed with the 
ability to see both sides. Go ahead." 

Michael went ahead, and Driscoll felt the weight lighten 
ing upon his shoulders. Then by a skilful manoeuvre he 
had released himself from the editorship and installed Aker 
shem in his place. Akershem was satisfied, the syndicate 
was satisfied, and Driscoll was more than satisfied. 

Seven years ago Michael Akershem, desperate, hungry, 
malevolent, had come upon John Driscoll as he sat smok 
ing in his office chair. To-day Michael Akershem stood 
before the world envied, if not applauded ; admired, if not 
esteemed. Between the two estates a wide gulf yawned, 
and the gulf had been bridged by Driscoll. Behind his 
success, his independence, his brilliant career, reached forth 
the sustaining hand, and the hand was Driscoll's. With an 
impassioned loyalty Akershem recognized and acknowl 
edged the debt. It was the one indissoluble bond that 
united him to humanity ; the one ray of white light shed 
upon the turbid passion of his soul. 

Seven years ago, if Michael Akershem could have looked 
ahead and seen himself standing as he stood to-day, he 
would probably have said : " It is well ; my ambition is 
overleaped," and yet to-day that ambition loomed as vast 
and far off as it had done seven years ago. The fortune 
that he followed was a chimera, the load-star of a fevered 
brain. The mirage stretched like an unconquered world 



THE DESCENDANT 63 

before him ; he went forward, and, as he moved, it flitted 
onward never any nearer always blue and satisfying and 
beyond. 

There is no state of satisfaction, because to himself no 
man is a success. Let the public shower laudations as it 
will, a man who has planted his foot upon the steep be 
holds the summit, upon the summit beholds the heaven. 
At every step he treads the unending circle of ambition, 
the undiscovered height in the distance looming higher, 
higher. 

A couple of years after Michael Akershem came to New 
York Driscoll initiated him, so to speak, into the ceremonies 
of society. 

" Mrs. Stuyvesant-Smyth means to take you up," he said, 
one day, tossing a card across the table. "I'm to dine 
there next week, and she desires me to bring my 'dreadful 
friend, Mr. Akershem.' " 

"Who is Mrs. Smyth?" asked Michael. 

" Mrs. Stuyvesant-Smyth : man, if you have to drop one 
don't let it be the Stuyvesant. Well, she holds the golden 
key to society, and no one questions her right of way, but 
if that does not satisfy you, she is second -cousin to my 
unworthy self." 

"Is she like you?" 

"The Driscoll nose, I believe, a misfortune which drew 
us together. However, she calls hers the Randolph, as her 
grandmother married a Randolph of Virginia, and mine 
didn't ; but calling a nose a Randolph doesn't make it 
straight." 

" But I shouldn't know what to say," remonstrated Mi 
chael, " or how to behave." 

" Oh, nobody behaves nowadays, it is not good form ; we 
leave that to the lower classes. Look as though I had 
dragged you there by the hair of your head and that your 
worst anticipations were realized. When she asks you to 
her 'at home,' say, 'So kind of you; charmed, I'm sure'; 
and look as much like a liar as possible. If you tread on 



64 THE DESCENDANT 

her gown, as you probably will, don't blush and don't 
stammer " 

" And you think I'd better go ?" 

"Oh," said Driscoll, "it's her fault, so she can't blame 
anybody. I told her you weren't her style and that you'd 
be the deuce in society, but she insisted. She's just like 
all women, running mad over something new, especially if 
it's a man with hair like a brush fence and no reputation to 
speak of." 

"Driscoll!" 

" Well, the hair speaks for itself, and the world speaks for 
the reputation, you know. I don't mean that you deserve 
it, my dear Shem ; a man's reputation has nothing whatever 
to do with what a man is. A virtuous man is simply a man 
whom nobody knows anything about; a vicious man, one 
whom somebody has been clever enough to find out. Why, 
look at Hedley Semple ! there is not a better man, morally, 
in New York ; but he has been discovered, as it were, and 
the women who won't notice Semple on the street will fawn 
over Madison Lyons, who hasn't a shred of honor to his 
back. You see it is wiser to be conventionally immoral 
than unconventionally moral. It isn't the immorality they 
object to, but the originality." 

And Michael went. 

When entering Mrs. Stuyvesant- Smyth's rooms he was 
all but blinded by the glare of light; when taking Mrs. 
Stuyvesant-Smyth's hand, he was dazzled by her diamonds 
and her beauty. He felt helpless and ill at ease ; he was 
conscious of himself, of his twenty -one years, and of his 
feet and hands. 

Down to dinner he carried a lady with a chin, who talked 
shrilly and asked him his opinion of the President's private 
character at the top of her voice. She was a new woman, 
but Michael did not recognize the species. Concerning 
the President, he had no opinion and he gave none ; he 
only looked at his plate and wondered which fork to use and 
which glass to drink out of. When the hock was passed 



THE DESCENDANT 65 

he allowed it to be poured into his champagne glass, and 
then, realizing that he had committed a breach of etiquette, 
blushed and was as miserable as if it had been a breach of 
honor perhaps more so. He glanced desperately across 
at Driscoll and found the shrewd, quick-sighted eyes fixed 
upon him. Then, as the hock was brought to Driscoll, he 
pushed forward his champagne glass. 

" A habit I got into in South America," he said, careless 
ly, meeting the eyes of his hostess ; " a connoisseur never 
changes his wine-glasses." 

Mrs. Stuyvesant-Smyth had beamed upon him as every 
one beamed upon Driscoll, and Michael had thrown him a 
glance of passionate gratitude, which Driscoll ignored with 
his easy smile. Looking back across all the years of gen 
erosity and friendship, Michael knew that all else that Dris 
coll had done for him was found wanting when weighed in the 
balance with that one small act of social courtesy. From that 
moment he had loved John Driscoll as a man loves a man, and 
with a love which passeth the love of woman for woman. 

" I shall never go to another dinner, so help me Provi 
dence !" Michael had said as they walked homeward. 
" What's the use of all that confounded ceremony, anyway ? 
This isn't an Oriental monarchy." 

Driscoll stopped to light a cigar, puffing leisurely away. 

" It was funny," he assented, " to hear you apologizing to 
Miss La Mode for spoiling her pinafore." 

" She didn't have any to spare," said Michael ; and then 
he added, " How beautiful Mrs. Stuyvesant-Smyth is ! I 
never saw such color in my life." 

Driscoll threw back his head and laughed. " Nor ever 
will in life" he said. " My dear Shem, your innocence 
shall become proverbial. I shouldn't mention it if she 
weren't my relation, but she is the most palpably made-up 
woman in New York." 

" I don't see the use in it all," said Michael. " If that is 
society, society seems to me a deuced unhealthy thing. I've 
done with it." 



66 THE DESCENDANT 

" A wise decision, since, most probably, society has done 
with you. I told Alicia you'd be the deuce at a dinner, and 
now she knows it. Taking Mrs. Stuyvesant-Smyth as the 
incarnation of society's creed, the world will forgive you 
sooner for breaking your choice of the ten commandments, 
provided, of course, you do it elegantly, than for, let us say, 
drinking out of your finger - bowl." Then he laughed. 
"'As long as you had to get mixed up, Shem, you might 
have scored -a point by ordering champagne in a goblet. 
You'd have won social distinction and the reputation of a 
rake. To an ambitious man the loss of such an oppor 
tunity is galling." 

" Your story about South America was good," said 
Michael, still smiling. 

" I flatter myself," said Driscoll, complacently flicking the 
ashes from his cigar, " that nobody can serve a better lie 
than I when I'm put to it. I don't say that I make lying a 
specialty, but I do say that a lie to suit my taste must be 
highly flavored and done to a turn. A clever lie sits no 
heavier upon the conscience than a stupid one " 

Some hours later when Michael went up to his room, he 
outlined a set of resolutions as he drew off his coat. 

"I've done with people," he said, "and women and 
fools. If I ever go to another dinner-party I hope I'll 
be " and the light went out. 

John Driscoll had gone home, smiling to himself. " Aker- 
shem's a queer fellow," he thought ; " a deuced queer fel 
low." He felt a certain uneasiness, despite his flippant 
bearing. In a sense he had stood sponsor to Michael's 
career, and the responsibility of the office began to mani 
fest itself. It was as if he himself had served to impel the 
boy upon his headlong course, for had it not been for his 
own instability and the need of The Iconoclast, he felt 
that circumstances must have tempered the fire of Aker- 
shem's spirit. A graver lesson might have been taught him 
by labor and experience. Lacking the power to give vent 



THE DESCENDANT 67 

to his intolerance, it must at last have burned itself to 
smoke. But with no surer knowledge of life than a child 
that has been fed upon fairy tales, he had hurled like thun 
derbolts his curses upon conventions. Sustained by the 
brilliancy that gave them utterance, the curses had not 
fallen to earth, but were still reverberating through the air. 

A check must be put upon Akershem. This Driscoll 
knew, and he also knew that his hand alone must apply the' 
brake. If Michael would not hearken to him, to whom 
would he hearken ? " Bless me, but I feel like cutting," 
said Driscoll. "I'd like to make off for the wilds of 
Africa," and he added, " only I'm tired of savages." 

But some days later he relented ; for one evening about 
dusk he was called to Akershem, who lay with a broken leg 
in Bellevue Hospital. It had been for a dirty little waif, 
the nurse told him, a crippled newsboy, who had fallen 
under a cable-car. The gentleman had been by,, and the 
gentleman had gone to his help. It was a brave deed, and 
all for a dirty little newsboy with a crippled back. 

Michael smiled as Driscoll bent over him. 

" This is uncomfortable," he said, " and it will keep me 
laid up for months. What a bore !" 

" Shem," said Driscoll, looking down upon the strong 
figure, the helpless, splintered limb; seeing with a fresh 
sense of wonderment the bitter mouth, the nervous, blink 
ing eyes, " Shem, it might have meant death. An accident 
saved you. Why did you do it ?" 

Akershem laughed weakly ; his hand was clenched upon 
the sheet, his face was pallid with self-restraint. He looked 
like the wreck of the hardy, fearless fellow of yesterday. 

And yet, John Driscoll, looking down upon him, started 
and fell back, wonder-stricken by the evanescent light upon 
his face. All the good deeds he might have done, all the 
pure thoughts he might have thought, seemed to circle in a 
humanized radiance about his head. A fleeting look, and 
yet John Driscoll felt a sudden chill of regret, for that one 
moment had shown him the man, not as he was, but as he 



68 THE DESCENDANT 

might have been had not the corroding grasp of shame 
fastened upon his soul had the sins of the fathers passed 
in honor the head of the child. 

But Akershem laughed. 

"If it had been any one else," he said, "perhaps I 
shouldn't , but, you see r he was such a poor little cuss, I 
couldn't help it." 

All impulse and emotion ! The best as well as the worst 
in him was the result of those swift, spasmodic changes. 
He was neither wholly good nor wholly bad ; it was a ques 
tion of chance ; right was up, impetuous, supreme ; in a flash 
rose wrong and checkmated it. The elements of his nature 
warred one with another. Apart they might have formed a 
wholesome simplicity ; meeting they mixed a poisonous 
complexity. It was as impossible to stem the force of his 
will as to change the current of the wind, which bloweth 
where it listeth. 

John Driscoll shook his head and went away. 

" Akershem," he said, " is in-com-pre-hen-si-ble." 






CHAPTER IV 

AND Rachel Gavin ? 

An English art critic, seeing her at this time, had writ 
ten home to one of the London dailies : " Among the young 
er American painters, the work of two women gives unques 
tionably the highest promise. The one a Bostonian, Claude 
Munro, and the other a Southerner, Rachel Gavin. At 
present, Miss Munro's work exhibits greater knowledge of 
technique, Miss Gavin's more original power, the crudity 
it presents resulting from a triumph of idea over execution. 
We shall follow with interest their respective careers. . . . 
In appearance," he added, "one is impressed by the dis 
similarity Miss Munro possesses a beauty which is at 
once noticeable, Miss Gavin is at first disappointing, after 
wards satisfying." 

And yesterday the critic paused in the salon before a 
picture of Claude Munro's and wondered what had become 
of the other, the young Southerner, with her unconscious 
spontaneity of manner and her exuberant ambition. "It's 
a pity," he said to himself; "she might have done great 
things. Married, I suppose, and expending her genius in 
the nursing of hiccoughy babies. And yet they expect to 
make women sensible !" and then he forgot all about her. 

As for Rachel herself, she had laughed over the criticism, 
one of her rippling, mirthful laughs. 

" Do I resemble a pumpkin pie ?" she asked. " Is it in 
shape or complexion ? For we have the happy quality in 
common that has both disappointed and satisfied Mr. 

A 's critical taste. Is it original with the pumpkin or 

with me ?" 

And she went about her work with unabated energy. 



70 THE DESCENDANT 

What if she paused to pat the heads of the street urchins 
along the way, or lingered at the flower stalls to banter 
words with a rheumatic old woman, who had ten children, 
and six of them down with the grippe ? She went about 
her work, nevertheless, and the ten hours daily were spent 
before her easel. 

She was a wholesome young person, with a well-reg 
ulated nervous system and a great power of self-absorp 
tion. When she expended herself she expended herself 
utterly. There had been no half-measures in her concen 
tration. Her work had demanded her time, and she had 
yielded it; it demanded her vitality, and she yielded that 
as well. 

An earnest little thing she was, good at times and bad 
at times, like the rest of us. Merry at times and sad at 
times, with an effervescent font of animal spirits which 
overflowed in laughter or in tears, in anger or in jollity, as 
the case might be. She had read much in books and little 
in life, being wise in theories and ignorant in facts, and 
possessing a good deal of that ignorance which is mis- 
termed innocence. Her clear glance had swept over nature, 
and had found all things pure and nothing common. 

Some twenty odd years ago, when she was a great-eyed 
slip of a girl in a blue pinafore, she had sketched, in her 
rash, impulsive way, her philosophy of life. "If you is good, 
like mamma," she said, "you don't have any fun, an' if 
you're mean like Aunt Sue nobody loves you. So I reck 
on I won't be neither ; I'll be good at first till people love 
-me so they can't stop, an' then I'll go to work an' have some 
fun." In those days she was rather inclined to be naughty 
than otherwise, with a pinafore that was always soiled in 
front and stockings that were continually slipping over her 
knees and having to be pulled up with a jerk. She had 
grown up upon an old plantation, making mud pies in the 
ditch or climbing on the lap of old Uncle Zeke. 

Uncle Zeke- was black and ugly, with only one leg with 
which to walk and only one eye with which to see. No- 



THE DESCENDANT 71 

body loved him but Rachel, and Rachel adored him. " It's 
a mystery," her mother had said ; " I don't understand. 
Why, Uncle Zeke is the most worthless darky on the place." 
And she had said to the child, " I believe Rachel loves Un 
cle Zeke more than mamma." 

The child leaned her small white face upon her clasped 
hands and looked away into space. " No !" she said ; " I 
reckon I loves mamma best, but I feels sorrier for Uncle 
Zeke." 

And she had gone through life upon the same great 
principle. 

"I like interesting people better," she said, "but I feel 
sorrier for the bores. There are so many of them, you 
know, and they must have such a tiresome time among 
themselves." 

But her redundant vitality served her well, and the sur 
plus energy was worked off in little sparkling outshoots of 
sympathy. She was seldom bored. "Why, the old woman 
at the flower stall," she said one day, " is quite diverting. 
Six of her children have the grippe and they've all taken 
different prescriptions. And she has given me every one, 
from castor-oil to sassafras tea." 

So she knocked about the world and went unharmed, and 
scorned nothing, and wept and laughed by turns. 

When she came to New York, alone and not quite penni 
less, with a package of introductory letters in her bag, and 
a great deal of determination in her brain, she had found 
that the path of art was not without its allotted share of 
stumbling-stones. But being an energetic young person, 
she had set to work to haul the stones out of her way. 
" Success and society are contradictions with me," she said 
to herself. "One cannot talk and toil. You can't keep 
your art and your acquaintances too." So she had chosen 
the better part, tossed the introductory letters into the fire, 
bought an outfit of flannel blouses and yachting-caps, brush 
ed all her fine dark hair back from her forehead, and pro 
ceeded to follow the path of her choice. 



72 THE DESCENDANT 

She lived in a suite of rooms consisting of a bedroom 
and studio on the fifth floor of the Templeton, got her 
breakfast in the restaurant on the ground floor, brewed her 
cups of tea at luncheon on the tiny stove behind the Japa 
nese screen in her studio, and took her dinner wherever fate 
and fortune chanced to favor. 

She held out a frank right hand to the world and his 
wife, from the fat man at breakfast who asked her if she 
thought that she was descended from the lost tribes of 
Israel, to the dapper young Frenchman who inquired "if 
ze negroes ver not quite like ze human being ?" 

To the one she answered, "Oh, I hope so, don't you? 
I like to think they're found, poor things " ; and to the 
other, " Oh, quite ! Almost as good imitations as the 
French." 

So Rachel went on her way. A little woman who lived 
on the seventh floor had summed up her impending fate in 
a doleful prophecy. The little woman was a misogamist, 
as well she might be, having married a foreigner in her 
youth to repent it in her age. " She's too innocent to come 
to any good," she said. " In this world innocence is worse 
than crime." And she had sighed and thought of the 
foreigner who had smitten her upon the cheek and gone 
hence. " She'll marry, poor thing," she added, " and she 
can't do worse unless it be to marry a Frenchman." 

But Rachel was unconscious of the prophecy. She had 
left romance fastidiously alone. Once, it is true, there had 
been a young Southerner who had pursued her with zeal 
for the better part of several years. He was convinced that 
she was in love with him, and endeavored to convince her 
as well. In the end he had almost succeeded. " This is 
love !" the girl had said, and she had repeated it to herself 
at intervals for a whole day. In the afternoon the asser 
tions weakened, and in the evening she confessed her in 
capacity, " I've been engaged to you a day," she said, 
" and I feel as if it were a century. Sentiment is so wear 
ing. I thought I was in love with you, but I'm afraid I 



THE DESCENDANT 73 

can't be. When one is in love, it doesn't nauseate one to 
be kissed, does it ?" 

And the young Southerner had confessed that according 
to the current creed it did not. " Then you must have mis 
taken the symptoms," said Rachel. " It was not sentiment, 
after all. I am sorry you are disappointed." When he had 
gone, after many tears and more protestations, the girl felt 
relieved and ten years younger. 

" How exhausting is the effort to love!" she sighed. And 
she had vowed to speak to no man except Dupont, the 
critic, and Annilt, the picture-dealer, and Chang Lee, who 
brought her clothes home from the laundry. And all went 
well. Dupont slapped her upon the shoulder and said, 
"Go on. You have the heavenly fire." She got into 
straits and pawned her watch, and got out again and re 
deemed it. She toiled and shifted and suffered and went 
without. She laughed and cried and was happy and miser 
able, like any sensible, well - ordered human being. And 
then she met Michael Akershem. 

She met him and forgot him and met him again. The 
evening after seeing him at the Academy she came up late 
from a search for a model and stumbled against him in the 
elevator. 

" Good-evening, St. John." 

Michael laughed. " So you haven't forgotten," he said. 
" Really, won't you take me as a model ? Finish this 
charming little sketch you so wantonly destroyed. See !" 
He drew a folded paper from his pocket and held it out to 
her. Then he drew it back. 

"No," he said, "you're not to be trusted. But I'll give 
you permission to make another." 

He bent his brilliant glance upon her, the light scintillat 
ing between the blinking lids. Rachel laughed merrily. 
The dimples about her eyes broke forth, away went the 
corners of her mouth. She gave a little audacious toss of 
her head. 

"No, thank you," she said. "I've taken my feather- 



74 THE DESCENDANT 

duster instead. It answers very well. Thank you for sug 
gesting it to me. It was the striking resemblance that gave 
me the idea." 

The banter was so new to him that he bent his gaze more 
firmly upon her, his wide brow wrinkling. She was so 
small, so sensitive, so childlike, that he felt suddenly tender. 
He had a consciousness that he could crush this white thing 
by one pressure of his strong arms. He looked down upon 
her, noticing the slight, full figure, the breadth of the shoul 
ders, the almost childlike slimness of the limbs, the long, 
straight neck with the unconscious poise of the head. 

He felt a strange, new sympathy, a tolerance, nay, a ten 
derness for a woman and a young woman at that. Then 
the elevator stopped and she stepped to the landing. He 
followed her. He was ignorant of the ways of women, but 
it seemed to him that she would not bring this good-fellow 
ship to a close. 

" Since I may not come as a model," he said, " may I not 
come as a critic? I am very severe and very just." Then 
he added, "If not this evening " 

" Oh !" said Rachel, "not this evening. I have only one 
teaspoonful of tea in the canister and one slice of bread to 
toast, and I want both myself. But some other time. Not 
in good light, because I'm always working, but at dusk or 
by lamplight you may criticise to your heart's content." 

And she had given him a deep glance over her shoulder 
and disappeared behind the curtains of her studio. Michael 
turned away with a curious feeling of suppressed excite 
ment. He wanted to laugh to give some forcible expres 
sion to his state of mind. He felt as a child feels that has 
discovered that a doll has hidden springs and can talk. 
Women were new to him. He had shunned them conscien 
tiously, with a morbid belief that he was cast in a different 
and rougher mould that their sensitive edges would shrink 
from contact with his unpolished exterior. He could marry 
no woman ; of this he had convinced himself, and as yet 
the possibility of another connection had not suggested it- 



THE DESCENDANT 75 

self. He looked upon marriage as the Moloch to which 
women sacrificed and by which they were sacrificed in turn. 
That a woman could be found independent enough to hold 
his views, or, holding them, courageous enough to live up to 
them, he had not for an instant deemed possible. He held 
confused and extreme theories concerning the sex, but of 
practical knowledge he was devoid. 

And here, at last, there was thrown in his way nay, 
thrust upon him a woman who was both strong and tender, 
who was as natural as a child and as innocent of coquetry. 
It was a fresh experience something at once convincing 
and distracting, something which caused a quickening of 
his pulses and a subtle infusion of tenderness into his 
heart. 

Going to his office, he sat down at the desk and fell to 
working. It was one of his series of articles upon marriage 
as an institution, and he found trouble in expressing him 
self upon paper. His ideas were confused, his words un 
suitable. 

" Social evolution proves to us," he wrote, " that an in 
stitution which is advantageous in a primitive or militant 
society, which is not without utility in consolidating the 
interests of men and in protecting the weaker against the 
encroachments of the stronger, impedes like an incubus 
the progress of that society when the society has passed 
from the militant to the industrial state, and Pshaw !" 
he said. "Am I a halting idiot?" and he frowned and ran 
his pen through the lines. Then he began again. 

" Like many a custom which has begun as an experi 
ment to end as a fetich, the institution of marriage has not 
been without a purpose to serve in the course of social evo 
lution. But customs, like garments, wear out and lose 
their original usefulness, and like garments require to be 
discarded for a more advanced and more suitable order. 

" But, unfortunately, man is less ready to adapt practices 
to his needs than he is to adapt his needs to practices. 
Custom, not conscience, maketh cowards of the most of us. 



76 THE DESCENDANT 

A theory once implanted in the mind of man, be it never so 
essential to progress in the beginning, in the end is per 
verted into a fetich, to protect whose altar the blood of 
human beings will be sacrificed. Truths are not the only 
things which, to quote Professor Huxley, begin as heresies 
to end as superstitions. Along with truths a good many 
falsehoods manage to make a successful struggle for exist 
ence, and if we glance about the world to-day I think we 
shall find that, despite the assertions of our forefathers, 
truth and falsehood are equally mighty and equally power 
ful to prevail. 

"The majority of men are as able to do good battle 
under one banner as under another, and, give them time, 
are quite as ready to swear that the cause for which 
they did battle was the cause of justice. An inhabitant of 
the Western world to-day can as obligingly swear to the 
creed that since ' man is the glory of God, but woman the 
glory of man,' man should glory in the submission of but 
one woman, as a native of China can testify that according 
to revelation and experience he is persuaded that the more 
glory the merrier. It depends not upon any Heaven-sent 
revelation concerning the respective glory of the two sexes, 
but Pshaw ! Am I writing a school-boy's thesis ?" And 
then he drew a long, sweeping line across the page and 
rose. " I'm all upset," he said. " My brain's in a muddle. 
Too many cigars." 

And he went out for a walk. Meeting Driscoll on the 
corner, he blurted out with the suddenness of a child : 

" Say, Driscoll, what kind of creatures are women, any 
way?" 

Driscoll took his arm and drew him under the electric 
light. 

" Been drinking, old man ?" he inquired. " No ; hand 
cool, pulse not quite even, but will do. Oh, women ! 
Bless me, I give it up. Ask another. They're one of the 
Almighty's enigmas for proving to men that he knows 
more than they do. Oh, all women aren't alike, you know. 



THE DESCENDANT 



77 



There 're several patterns. There's the woman with brains 
and the woman without last-named variety remarkably 
plentiful. Then there's the woman of good character and 
the woman of bad, and the woman who is supposed to have 
none to speak of. There's the pretty woman and the ugly 
woman. There's the woman that's worthy of God and the 
woman that the devil wouldn't take at a bargain." 

" Are are they sensible and thoughtful ? Are are they 
like men ?" 

"They're trying to be, my young innocent. But they 
haven't gotten that far down yet. Give them time, though. 
Vice is mighty, you know " 

" Nonsense, Driscoll, don't be a fool ! Could you did 
you were you ever in love ?" 

" Could I ? did I ? was I ? Well, damn me, I could, 
and I was, and I did. I wasn't born wise, you know, Shem. 
I cultivated it." 

" You wouldn't marry her because " 

" I'd have been deuced glad to. I couldn't." 

"Why not?" 

" She wouldn't. Bad taste. I agree with you. She 
was one of the plentiful type without brains, you know. 
She married a missionary." 

"Oh!" 

When next Michael saw Rachel Gavin it was in her 
studio. He had gone between lights, when she had just 
pushed aside her easel and was lolling upon a divan be 
fore an open fire. He noticed that she wore a gown that 
was loose and full and of some dim, nondescript shade. 
When she lifted her arms the sleeves fell in soft folds back 
upon the shoulders. It was a dressing-gown, and she had 
just slipped into it. But Michael did not know. If he had 
seen her trailing it along Fifth Avenue he would have con 
sidered it, had he considered it at all, as entirely suitable 
and appropriate. He noticed how childlike and pliant her 
figure was, and how white her small face with the firelight 



78 THE DESCENDANT 

flickering over it. " I'll give you some tea in a moment," 
said Rachel. And she leaned forward to raise the wick of 
the tiny stove. " You may pass me the cups. Now take 
your choice. The pink one is the prettier, but the gold one 
holds more. Do you know, when you knocked I thought 
you were poor Madame Laroque, who is continually pur 
sued by the fear of Frenchmen. She lives on the seventh 
floor, you know, and does linen embroidery for sale. Her 
husband slapped her and ran away, and ever since madame 
has lived in hourly dread of his returning to visit the scene 
of his crime. She says he only slapped her upon one cheek, 
and she has a presentiment that he will never rest in his 
grave until he has come back and slapped her upon the 
other. Dreadful, isn't it ? Why, she screams whenever you 
knock at her door, and she won't let you in until you've 
given the watchword 'No Frenchman.' And, do you know, 
when you knocked I thought it sounded as though you 
were being pursued. Are you afraid of Frenchmen, too? 
Oh, here is the tea. Beautifully drawn. Give me your 
cup. One lump only one, did you say ?" 

It was delightful. Michael's glance dwelt upon her like 
one enraptured. She was so frank, he thought, so natural, 
so free from any shadow of self-consciousness. 

She sipped her tea, and then, setting the cup aside, leaned 
back against the cushions of the divan and threw her arms 
above her head with a quick, impulsive movement. Her 
gestures were all quick and impulsive. She was alive to her 
finger-tips, and warm with the flow of her rich, red blood. 
He leaned towards her, his eyes narrowing. 

" Do you see this ?" she asked. " This was sent me as 
containing proof positive that you were a publican, and to 
be detested. A correct young man saw me talking to you 
at the Academy, and this is the result. I read one or two 
of the articles. They were delightfully funny." 

" Funny !" protested Michael. " Abuse them, abhor them, 
destroy them if you will, but don't laugh at them." 

" Oh, but they are so amusingly in earnest and original, 



THE DESCENDANT 79 

too. I like originality. There's only one thing I like bet 
ter, and that is independence." 

Michael gave her a quick, radiating glance. He warmed 
suddenly. "We've done a good work," he said. "The 
circulation of our paper has doubled in a year. At every 
meeting of the society there is a society, you know, com 
posed of persons interested in the journal stockholders, 
journalists, and the like. Why, the meetings are most en 
thusiastic, or, as Driscoll says, ' most foolastic.' I have an 
assistant, a young fellow who has entered body and soul 
into the cause. He forms societies among the workmen, and 
is the president of dozens of committees for inquiring into 
all sorts of abuses. Oh, he's a great help. When my time 
is quite taken up with the paper, he goes outside and awak 
ens interest. He has even started a branch among women. 
The Twentieth Century Society it is called, and it is quite 
in the heart of the most advanced movement of the day." 

He was talking rapidly, his face flushed, his eyes blink 
ing, his effulgent glance riveted upon the girl. 

The emphasis of his personality became pronounced a 
terrible reserve force within his nature, forever salient and 
forever illusive. Some vague, intangible mystery of will 
that asserted its dangerous power over man, woman, and 
child, stamping even his objective environment with the 
impress of a mighty and impassioned personality. 

The girl leaned forward, her hands clasped upon her 
knees, her deep eyes casting their light upon his face. She 
was interested. She became suddenly conscious of the scin 
tillating magnetism of the man. 

" But," she said, " I don't quite understand. You aren't 
an anarchist that you deny. You aren't a socialist, for 
you laugh at all schemes of socialism. Are you simply ad 
vanced ? Now, what does it mean to be advanced ? Does 
it mean to be a little ahead in wickedness of your fellows ?" 

Michael interrupted her brusquely. 

"We do not laugh at socialism," he explained. "We 
laugh at the schemes of socialism that have been expound- 



So THE DESCENDANT 

ed. They have all failed in the essential principle that is, 
in reaching an equilibrium of moral restraint and moral 
liberty. Socialism and individualism need to coalesce to 
give us the surest protection to the rights of man with the 
widest personal liberty, 'the legal enactments which place 
unnatural and burdensome conventions upon individuals 
should be abolished ; the freedom which allows the few to 
possess themselves of the privileges of the many should be 
restricted. What we need is to place a premium upon in 
dividuality, and, at the same time, to protect the individual 
by giving him an opportunity to prove his capacity for 
honest labor in the field of his choice, to insure to him the 
fruits of his labor. We must not allow the stronger in the 
form of a corporation to crush out the weaker in the form 
of individual enterprise. Centralization and individualism 
need to be reconciled, and can be " 

" And you expect to do it," said Rachel, " with one blow 
of your strong fist ? Revolt is fruitless." 

" Revolt is the forerunner of all great changes," said 
Michael. " It's as much a part of evolutionary socialism 
as the results themselves. The few pioneer and clear the 
rubbish away, and then the millions follow, like sheep, in 
their footsteps." 

"After having cursed the pioneer," added Rachel, "and 
most probably stoned him to death, they make a bridge 
with his bones and pass over." 

Then they fell to talking of Michael's work, of Michael's 
life, and of Michael himself. He told her of his childhood, 
.ind then, in a haughty, sensitive way, spoke of his birth. 

" I was born under an evil star," he said, " the only kind 
of star that is absolutely fixed, and that neither rises nor sets. 
I was formed as a potter forms a pot, and thrown aside into 
the gutter to be kicked to pieces by strangers. As a child I 
all but lived in a pigsty. I tended the pigs No, don't pity 
me. I sometimes look back now with regret to the long 
days in the pastures, with only space and weeds and pigs " 

But Rachel was not pitying him. To a woman of her 



THE DESCENDANT 8l 

fearless nature there seemed a certain sublimity in his reck 
less defiance. It stirred and thrilled a responsive echo in 
her own heart. All the latent capacity for hero-worship, 
that had lain dormant since childhood, awoke with intensity. 
She adored courage, and perhaps she found a fascination 
in this moral force that was brave enough to scorn custom, 
conventions nay, respectability itself. She looked up at 
him with a wide, comprehensive glance. She saw all the 
straight, manly length of him, the heavy brow, the sensitive, 
quivering mouth. She gloried in the defiance, in the daring 
that made this man able to face her and say, " I owe no 
man anything not even a name." She did not wonder at 
the inconsistency of his life ; did not see that though he 
defied religion, yet he raged because his own birthright 
had been without benefit of clergy ; that though he opposed 
marriage, yet he blushed because he himself had been born 
without the pale. 

She was young and impulsive, and she did not see this ; 
if she had seen it, could it have saved her from herself? 
Perhaps not. And he was sincere enough, God knows. 
He felt that he had been a victim to adverse circumstances, 
and so did she. He believed that the hope for future gen 
erations lay in sweeping such possible injustice aside, and 
she she did not think of future generations at all. She 
thought only of him. 

"I have lived to myself," said Michael, "and I shall die 
to myself. I have but one friend in the world a man. 
As for women, granting that a woman could find aught in 
me to love could a woman brave public opinion as I have 
braved it ? Could a woman share my principles and live 
them as I have lived them? No, don't pity me. I tell 
you I am not to be pitied." 

Rachel looked up at him as he towered above her, alone, 
miserable, hated, and hating. A sudden rush of sympathy 
stirred her pulses. 

" I don't pity you," she said. " How dare you say so ? 
I honor you !" 

6 



82 THE DESCENDANT 

She held out her hand. He took it, and then looked 
down upon her, and his eyes softened. The hard look 
died from them, giving place to a gleam of tenderness. He 
felt a swift desire to lean down and touch the white nape 
of her neck upon which the dark hair was coiled. And 
then a swifter and keener desire to take her in his arms 
very tenderly, as one takes a child to feel the pressure of 
her firm, reliant hands. It was an emotion quite new to 
him, so new that he felt conscious and half alarmed, fear 
ing to have it fade away. 

When he had gone Rachel sat motionless in the flicker 
ing firelight, her chin resting upon her clasped hands. Her 
sympathies had been touched and had responded with all 
their exuberant force. She was conscious of having been 
called away from her self-absorption, of having been be 
trayed into reverencing a man, a man who was leader and 
pioneer of what the world called a non-moral element, but 
a man who was strong enough to stand fearlessly alone 
ah, that was a man ! 

She sat there, the firelight flickering over her, casting a 
rich radiance over her dull gown, shimmering in her wide 
eyes, and falling like a flash of light across her broad, 
white brow. Her easel stood beside her. In the corner 
there was a large unfinished canvas, before which a curtain 
hung. 

"It is my great picture," she had said to Michael "my 
great picture, which no one has seen," and she did not lift 
the curtain. Now she rose and went towards it and drew 
the hangings aside. It was a half -finished Magdalen, a 
rough peasant Magdalen, with traces of sinful passion and 
sinful suffering upon her face. A woman who, having been 
dragged through the mire and slime, forever carried the 
stains upon her broken body. It was a great work, as she 
had said, a work which showed the hand of genius, a hand 
whose strokes are powerful and falter not. 

She let the curtain fall and turned away. 

" How strong he is," she said. 



CHAPTER V 

Miss GAVIN was emancipated, or believed herself to be, 
which amounts to the same thing. 

She had once been heard to remark that she occupied a 
position in the most advanced flank of the New Woman's 
Crusade. 

"I don't deliver lectures," she said, "nor do I write 
revolutionary articles for the Sunday papers, but I live the 
views which most of them only express. They wish to be 
emancipated. I am emancipated." 

From all of which it may be inferred that Miss Gavin 
was as ignorant as the most advanced of her sex. Like 
them, she was levelling her guns at shadows and making a 
fierce onslaught upon mere phantom foes. The dust of the 
conflict was in her eyes, and she was busily aiming her can 
non at the inoffensive onlookers, or even the trees along 
the way, while she clasped her arch - foe to her mistaken 
breast. She had not learned that the enemy of woman is 
neither God, man, nor devil, but her own heart. 

Some day, in a far distant to-morrow, when the present 
century is well buried beneath the strata of the earth, when 
the Quaternary epoch is as far down as the Palaeozoic, and 
our descendants are poking and prying among our relics, 
as we poke and pry in search of the Ichthyosauri and the 
Pterodactyls, a wonderful change will have occurred upon 
the surface of the globe. 

While the scientists of the future mere motory forma 
tions of brain matter are quarrelling as to the degree of 
barbarity exhibited in our fossils, a more startling discovery 
will be taking place above their heads. 

For woman will have turned upon her real foe, and have 



84 THE DESCENDANT 

rent the mask apart, and, lo ! she will have looked into the 
face and have seen her own. 

From that moment the victory will be gained. Men, man 
ners, and morals will have a rest, and only change fashion 
in due season, as is highly respectable. And woman will 
have triumphed. 

But that will be to-morrow, and it is of no to-morrow that 
I write, but of the nineteenth century, somewhere between 
the years of our Lord " ninety and ninety-five." A momen 
tous period it is, unless I am deceived. A period when we 
stand with one foot firmly advanced into the twentieth cen 
tury and our backs turned broadly upon the past. We are 
progressing finely in these days. The fashions of manners 
and morals are changing with much rapidity. A new form 
of vice is in vogue, not the old skilfully draped creature that 
we of the fifties remember so fondly. Oh no, quite a bold 
and audacious character, with no covering from her sister 
virtue, and indeed with no covering at all worth recording. 
The good old theory of our forefathers that vice was in the 
naming of it has still a number of adherents ; but there is a 
new school of morality, quite a popular one in its day, and 
carrying under its banner some of the foremost names of 
the century Ibsen, Tolstoi, M. Zola, and many others, who 
hold that, being done publicly, it is no longer vice but real 
ism. However, that is a distinction in terms, not a differ 
ence. 

But this is a progressive epoch, let him deny it who will. 
It dares speak audibly of facts which its forerunners did 
not whisper, but expressed, as it were by a pantomime, acts 
without words. Men grow callous to the point of meeting 
their wives in public, and ladies are able to mention legs in 
general without the need of smelling-salts. A progressive 
period, dare you deny it ? 

But Rachel thought herself emancipated, and was as 
strong in her conviction as the most of us, before Time has 
shown us our error. 

She believed herself to be emancipated, and yet She 



THE DESCENDANT 85 

had behind her a series of grandmothers, from the dear old 
lady who pottered about her plantation and was bullied by 
her darkies, to Mistress Eve, who pottered about Paradise 
and was bullied by Adam. Virtuous women they were, no 
doubt. As for the old lady on the plantation, I can stake 
my word, if need, upon her probity, and I do not remember 
having heard aught derogatory to the honor of Mistress 
Eve. The devil was the only person likely to inquire into 
the matter, and, if he knew, he was gentleman enough to 
keep quiet. 

With such irreproachable ancestry Rachel had sprung 
full armed into existence, since good repute is nine-tenths 
of morality and the whole of respectability. She was over 
shadowed by the virtues of those gentlewomen who were 
such adepts in the kitchen and the nursery. For the space 
of some fifty years Miss Gavin's own great-grandmother 
was held triumphantly up before her fang-suffering neigh 
bors as a pattern of modesty and meekness. Her husband, 
a true gentleman of the old school, knee - breeches, lace 
ruffles, and all, to say nothing of the sobriety, was heard 
to speak of her as the ideal of St. Peter, a woman from 
whose lips fell only " chaste conversation, coupled with 
fear." Whether the hearing Or the patience of the old gen 
tleman gave out was never known, but the benefit of the 
chaste conversation was usually bestowed upon the slaves 
for want of other audience. The gentleman of the old 
school preferred to spend his evenings at the Red Cross 
Tavern, where a lady was then residing who is nameless in 
polite society, and whose conversation was hardly held to 
be an example of chastity. But the virtuous old gentle 
woman knew her duty, and, what is quite another thing, she 
performed it to the best of her ability. When the jolly 
gentleman staggered home in the wee, small hours of the 
morning, very red of face, very husky of voice, and very re 
volting altogether, rny lady would be sitting beside her dis 
taff, her powdered hair as unruffled as at noon. She met 
him thus for fifty years ; she greeted him with a wifely kiss ; 



86 THE DESCENDANT 

she assisted him to bed, after mixing his night-cap of whis 
key and water with her own aristocratic hands. Then she 
said her prayers, and thanked the Lord that Satan had not 
beguiled her from the path of duty. Oh, that was a wife 
worth having ! 

In the natural course of time her duty exhausted her and 
she died. At her funeral the sermon was preached from 
the text : 

"Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far 
above rubies." 

The old gentleman was much affected; he lamented al 
most as loudly as he had done when his dapple mare foun 
dered. It was at least a week before he went to the Red 
Cross Tavern, and almost six months before he was able to 
find a woman virtuous enough to be worth her price. How 
very judicious of Providence to make virtue its own reward, 
for it is the only one it ever gets ! 

But Miss Gavin had not inherited the character of her 
admirable ancestor. Had she been in her place she would 
probably have locked the jolly gentleman out the first time 
he went to the Red Cross Tavern, and certainly she would 
have boxed his ears had he attempted to kiss her in his 
maudlin humor. But Rachel lived when the nineteenth 
century was on its last legs ; she was an embodiment of 
that transitional period when new customs were casting off 
the garments of the old and an illusive spirit of discontent 
manifested itself in the nation. At that time the firmly im 
planted principles of to-day were but quickening before the 
travail of birth, and men were dissatisfied with the old with 
out having evolved the new. Theories floated around, like 
bacteria in an infected atmosphere, waiting to gain a para 
sitic existence upon an unsettled reason. 

A restless, vacillating period it was, and Miss Gavin was 
an embodiment of the spirit of her times. 

Mrs. Algernon Van Dam, a cousin of Miss Gavin on her 
father's side, and on her own account the well-to-do wife of 
a well-to-do banker, began a systematic patronage upon 



THE DESCENDANT 87 

Rachel's arrival in New York. Mrs. Van Dam lived in a 
very inconvenient house in a very convenient location ; 
somewhere on Fifth Avenue it was, just beyond Fifty-first 
Street. Mrs. Van Dam had sent Miss Gavin cards to her 
" at home " ; Miss Gavin had not gone. Mrs. Van Dam 
had called ; Miss Gavin had done likewise. 

" My dearest child," said Mrs. Van Dam, " you must look 
upon me quite as a sister, you know. You are so impulsive, 
so unsophisticated. Such naturalness is so refreshing." 
And the next day, from her carriage window, Mrs. Van Dam 
had seen Miss Gavin coming off the Bowery with a dirty 
Italian waif by the hand, and she had blushed. An even 
ing or two later she called and found the unsophisticated 
young person going to dine at a French restaurant, quite 
alone, and with a crepe scarf about her head. There were 
no more cards, no more calls. Mrs. Van Dam bowed upon 
the street, and that was all. 

Alas ! poor Rachel ! Now Mrs. Van Dam passes her and 
does not bow, and that is not all. 

And the Mrs. Van Dams of society continue to flourish 
as a green bay-tree. Not because they are more virtuous 
than other people, I beg to submit, but because they appear 
to be ; an imitation, by-the-bye, which has often better re 
sults than the original, and is altogether more satisfactory 
to the person engaged. 

For Mrs. Van Dam goes smilingly in to dinner on the arm 
of Bertie Catchings, who supports Callie French, the ballet- 
dancer, and beams admiringly upon old General Morehead, 
who has broken the hearts and the reputations of a dozen 
women in his day, and whose day will not be over until his 
life is. But as for Callie French herself, why, she blushes if 
you call her name, and the dozen victims of General More- 
head she passes in the gutter and draws her skirts aside. 

And this was the era of the Woman's Crusade ! 

As for Rachel, she forgot Mrs. Van Dam sooner than 
that lady forgot her; for she had other things to think of, 



88 THE DESCENDANT 

and Mrs. Van Dam had not, or if she had she did not think 
of them. Rachel went about her work with steadfast feet. 
The world was to her a gigantic machine by which her suc 
cess was ground out; men and women objects necessary 
to the accomplishment of that success. 

She was not St. Peter's ideal, nor was she the ideal of 
any one else. She did not believe that meekness and hu 
mility were the crown of womanhood, and if you had told 
her that " man was made for God, but woman for man," 
very probably she would have laughed. She was honest 
and good-tempered and brave, and perhaps very little else, 
except charming, and now and then very nearly if not quite 
beautiful. She had seen a good deal of Michael Akershem 
since that evening in her studio. Several times he had 
dropped in about dusk, and she had met him once or twice 
at dinner in the restaurant around the corner. On the 
whole, she had thought very little about him. She was 
working upon an oil canvas for the March exhibit, and, as 
usual, her work absorbed her lesser interests. One even 
ing she ran against him on Twenty-third Street, as she 
came out of a little Japanese shop. Her hands were filled 
with bundles, and Michael took them from her, but Miss 
Gavin demurred. " You may carry this," she said, " for it 
has only a cup towel in it ; and you may carry this because 
it is marmalade, and, if you break it, you sha'n't have any 
with your tea ever any more ; but you can't take this because 
it is a palette, and you'd be sure to hold it awkwardly and 
let it drop. I got it in place of one Madame broke while 
she was cleaning it. She thought she heard her husband 
coming up-stairs, and she screamed and let it fall. She 
would be such a very useful little woman if she did not have 
that unfortunate habit of feeling presentiments. Anyway, 
I've warned her that if he does come back I shall ring up 
the police." 

Michael laughed. Then he looked down into her mirth 
ful face the dimpling eyes, the sensitive corners of her 
mouth that trembled and twitched upward, and the laugh 



THE DESCENDANT 89 

softened into a smile. "A mouse defying a lion," he said ; 
" a man could crush you with a blow of one finger." 

" Perhaps," admitted Miss Gavin, " but I hardly think 
you will find one foolhardy enough to try it." 

Then they both laughed and walked homeward. 

" You may come in," said Rachel, when they had reached 
the flat ; " I'll give you some marmalade, since you were 
kind enough not to drop the jar. Madame Laroque is com 
ing down, and we're going to dine at a little French restau 
rant around the corner, and be waited on by a charming Irish 
waiter named Pat. Should you like to dine with us ?" 

Like ! He would have liked fire and brimstone at that 
moment had she been hospitable enough to offer it. He 
went in, and Rachel made tea and spread marmalade upon 
his bread for him, as children do, and talked and laughed 
and dimpled until he almost forgot that he was an outcast 
and at war with the whole human race. 

Then Madame Laroque came down. She was a demure 
little woman with pink cheeks, and eyes that looked as 
though they had gotten very wide open once and had never 
resumed their natural size. She rarely spoke, and when 
she did it was to say " yes " or " no," as the case might 
require. 

Presently Rachel went into her bedroom, and came out 
with a soft Persian scarf thrown over her head and around 
her shoulders. The drapery suited her well, and Michael 
had never seen her more bewitching. Her eyes shone like 
clouded stars ; the little dimples beside them were never at 
rest, but came and went and came again like tiny ripples , 
the corners of her mouth twitched upward and then lay 
still ; and she laughed, and away they went, regardless of 
regularity. Every change of thought passed in a fleeting 
gleam or shade across her sensitive face. 

At the restaurant they were waited upon by the amiable 
Pat. Michael sat opposite Rachel, and between the spoon 
fuls of her lukewarm soup she beamed upon him, as she 
beamed upon Madame Laroque, with her deep, gray glance. 



9 THE DESCENDANT 

There was a feeling of peace and homeliness which 
Michael, buffeted as he had been about the world, had 
never known before. He began to doubt if he really hated 
the entire human race; surely he did not hate one small 
atom of it that could not be. He felt secure in her pres 
ence ; sure of a steadfast hold upon faith and strength ; 
sure, too, of a quick responsive sympathy a sympathy 
which rained upon him from beautiful, deep-set eyes. 

He was conscious of an illusive sense of exaltation 
something indefinable and indefinite, and yet something 
which seemed to lift him above material phenomena. He 
did not seek to analyze the sensation ; he did not recognize 
the symptoms, as one accustomed to the malady of love 
would have done. He only knew that he was glad to be with 
this one woman, to say nothing of Madame Laroque, and 
that she possessed an all-pervading charm of personality. 

Rachel was in high good-humor; she laughed and spar 
kled with an effervescent flow of mirth. 

" I have dined here twenty-four times within the last 
month," she said. " It is delightful unless the cook is in a 
bad humor. If he is, he refuses to give one anything save 
his own selections. Why, once he was so provoking. I 
ordered bouillon, and Pat came back and said the cook 
wouldn't let him have any. Then I ordered birds, and the 
cook actually sent me word that he wasn't going to broil 
any birds, but that I might have chops. I detest chops ; 
so I said, 'Pat, show me the kitchen,' and Pat left me at 
the door, and just as I opened it the old scalawag heaved 
a soup-tureen at my head. I caught it on the fly, and when 
he saw me he almost had a fit. I declare I never saw any 
one grow so purple in the face except my little Italian 
model when he swallowed a wax plum by mistake. But the 
cook begged my pardon and gave me some bouillon, and 
all ended happily." 

" Yes !" said Madame Laroque. Madame was a charm 
ing person. When one says " yes " when you expect it, and 
" no " when you expect it, what more can mortal man desire ? 



THE DESCENDANT gi 

" I didn't like his mayonnaise," continued Rachel, " so I 
gave him my own recipe, and he makes it delicionsly, doesn't 
he ?" 

" Deliciously !" said Michael, who loathed it. 

" Yes," said Madame, who loved it. 

Rachel talked, Michael looked at her, and Madame La- 
roque ate her dinner, which proves her to have been a sen 
sible woman. But Madame had weighed love and her 
Frenchman in the balance, and had found both wanting. 
When one finds sentiment worthless, one turns to food, and 
probably is consoled. 

They drank their coffee and left, and Michael walked 
home with them, saying good-night before Rachel's door. 

As he took her cool, frank hand in his an electric current 
seemed to start from his finger-tips, darting through his 
veins to his heart. He watched her loosen the Persian 
scarf and let it fall back upon her shoulders, showing the 
white curves of her throat. He bent his gaze upon her, 
looking down into her upturned face. A massive con 
sciousness of unworthiness oppressed him ; the knowledge 
that she was far, immeasurably far, beyond him. 

" Good-night," he said ; " think well of me." And he 
dropped her hand and turned away. Rachel went into her 
studio and talked to Madame Laroque about Frenchmen 
for an hour. She hadn't any opinion upon the subject, but 
as it was the only one upon which Madame had any, they 
were compelled to recourse to it. Then Madame went to 
bed, and Rachel found the papers Michael had left a week 
ago and read them very carefully ; after which she let down 
her fine dark hair, and sat before the fire brushing it until 
it glowed from the friction. 

She felt peaceful and happy. As yet no electric thrills 
had broken the calm serenity of her pulse, no tumult of 
any kind disturbed her frank good -humor. With each 
long, firm stroke of the brush she was soothed into drow 
siness. " I am so sleepy," she said, presently, speaking 
softly to herself. Then, before going to bed, she crossed 



92 THE DESCENDANT 

the room in her bare feet to where the unfinished canvas of 
the Magdalen stood, strong and awful behind the heavy cur 
tain. Very white and slim in her nightgown, Rachel stood 
before it, lifting the hangings as she looked at it in the dim 
firelight. The painted woman seemed to quicken and come 
to life, to look back at the living woman with a great fore 
warning in her awful eyes. 

But Rachel only saw in it the work of her own strong 
hands her great work. 

" Let me finish it, O God !" she prayed. " Let me make 
of it a great, great thing. Give me this, and I will ask 
nothing else my whole life long ; but, O God ! God ! give 
me this 1" 

She knelt down upon the floor, clasping her hands like a 
child, her face wrapt and white, the dark plait winding like 
a serpent along her gown. 

"Give me my ambition," she prayed, "and nothing else 
nothing else, O God !" 

Then she rose from her knees and went to her bed in 
the adjoining room. 



CHAPTER VI 

UPON New-year's Day Michael took a holiday. It was 
his first holiday, and he found some difficulty in deciding 
what to do with it; before it was an hour old it had de 
veloped into a white elephant upon his hands. 

In the morning he awoke with a definite intention of en 
joying himself and an indefinite idea as to what manner 
of enjoyment it should be. Then, in a nebulous obscurity, 
his thoughts gathered about a shining centre, and the centre 
was Rachel Gavin. An indeterminate impulse prompted 
him at once to seek and to shun her presence. Against 
his judgment he desired her, but the desire was no less 
urgent because unauthorized. The tide of his undisci 
plined nature strained towards her as though impelled by 
some magnetic attraction. The illusive subtlety of person 
ality fascinated as it enthralled him ; the feminine quality 
had fallen over him as a spell. 

He arose early, rendered restless by his mental turmoil. 
The room stifled him, and he descended to the sidewalk 
and wandered for hours in a drifting snow. He entered a 
florist's cautiously, as a thief might and emerged bearing 
a paper box containing violets. With the violets under his 
arm he returned to his room and set about making his toi 
let, an operation of some length, consequent upon an un 
usual decision. For the first time in his life he wilfully 
resolved to sacrifice comfort to adornment, and it was with 
a fluctuating sense of self-respect that he discarded his 
flannel blouse. 

Then, hearing Driscoll's step upon the landing, he hid 
the violets under the bed and began sorting a pile of 
cravats. 



94 THE DESCENDANT 

" Happy New-year !" began Driscoll as he entered ; after 
which he gave vent to a prolonged whistle. " Ye gods !" 
he exclaimed, " behold the mould of fashion." 

Michael blushed to the roots of his hair. "It strikes 
me," he returned, stiffly, " that I have on just about what 
you have." 

" But I am numbered among the Philistines." 

The flush passed from Michael's face; he threw back 
his head impatiently. " I don't see that a boiled shirt affects 
my principles," he protested. 

Driscoll shrugged his shoulders with his habitual loose- 
jointed movement, which reminded one of an automatic 
supple jack. " Vanity, thy name is man," he observed, re 
proachfully. Then, a sudden suspicion seizing him, he 
wheeled round with a jerk. "Why, bless me, if you aren't 
using cologne !" he said, with disgust ; " or is it powder ?" 

Frowning heavily, Michael tossed the cravats upon the 
bed, managing at the same time to administer a vicious 
kick to the violets. 

" Don't be any more of an ass than you're obliged to be," 
he retorted, angrily. 

Driscoll seated himself upon the bed, humming a comic 
song between half-closed lips. With unabated good-humor 
he watched Michael tie a four-in-hand cravat. 

" Pleasant day," he observed, finally. 

" Deuced," responded Michael, without turning his eyes. 

With shrill amiability Driscoll finished the song, com 
menced another, broke off, and walked up and down the 
room. Then he seated himself and gave way to his fore 
bodings. 

"It's it's not a woman?" he remonstrated. 

" No, it is not," returned Akershem, with seventy. 

" Then, let it be what it may, there's a chance of salva 
tion." 

Michael surveyed him for a moment in silence. " I don't 
see why you object to women," he remarked ; " they are 
good enough in their proper places." 






THE DESCENDANT 



95 



" Which is usually the last place in which you find them. 
But I don't object to women, my dear Shem ; I object to 
them in connection with yourself. A substance may be all 
right in a free state and the deuce in combination. Every 
thing is in the mixing, you know." 

Michael brushed the sleeve of his coat impatiently. "I 
suppose it depends upon the woman," he^bserved at last. 

"And the man," added Driscoll. "As for that, every 
thing has its uses ; marriage is an institution admirably 
adapted to fools." 

" I wasn't speaking of marriage." 

" Oh, you weren't, weren't you ? When a man begins 
talking of women the subject of matrimony isn't far off." 

Michael was silent, determination settling upon his face. 
When next he spoke it was with a metallic ring of decision. 

" I can't go with you to-day," he said. " I've other plans 
on hand." 

Driscoll shrugged his shoulders. " You have mysteries," 
he remarked. " Mysteries are always immoral." Then he 
sighed. " Shem is no longer innocent." 

" So much the better for Shem. Innocence is milk-and- 
water ignorance." 

" Exactly. I've often wondered why the students of the 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil were always so pro 
ficient in the latter branch. It's because if one learns any 
thing it must be vice ; virtue is merely the passive state. 
Oh, the ignorant are the innocent, the simple are the 
saintly." 

"Which argues you a Solomon." 

" By no means. With me evil is an intuition, with you an 
acquirement. I have not lost my innocence because I have 
none to lose. As for you, alas! " 

" Don't be an infernal drivel of a fool !" 

" Strong language, that ; but to the point. Oh, my dear 
Shem, yours is the assurance of youth. In time you'll learn 
that vice palls upon the taste no less than virtue. One 
should follow neither the broad road that leads to gout, nor 






96 THE DESCENDANT 

the narrow one that leads to nothing ; there are many by 
paths connecting the two." 

" Philosophic utterances inspired by my descent down 
ward," commented Michael, dryly. 

" I weep for your native innocence." Then Driscoll rose, 
shook himself, and departed. "I'm not wanted," he de 
clared, plaintively^as a parting shot. " The light of my 
righteous countenance is a reproach. I leave you to your 
base intentions." 

When he had gone Michael threw open the window and 
stood looking across the rows of blackened chimney-pots. 
A little heap of snow lay upon the sill, and he bent down 
and blew it out into space. A breath of intense cold 
passed across his face, and, looking downward, he saw the 
frozen streets gleaming like silver in the morning light. 

He turned away, took up his hat, stooped to draw the 
violets from their hiding-place, and passed out, slamming 
the door after him. Upon the threshold of Rachel's studio 
he placed the box and stole quietly away. Reaching the 
ground-floor, he sought out a severe-looking waiter. " Has 
every one at your table breakfasted, Samuel ?" he inquired. 
Samuel replied that they had leastways, everybody except 
the fat gentleman with the puffy face, who didn't count. 

" And Miss Gavin ? Did she go out afterwards ?" 

No, Miss Gavin had not gone out afterwards ; he thought 
she had returned to her room. 

Michael got into the elevator, rode to the fifth landing, 
and got out ; after which he got in again and rode down. 
This operation he repeated six times, to the speechless in 
dignation of the elevator boy, a proper-minded youth with 
principles, and the strongest of whose principles related to 
the culpability of making unnecessary exertions. Michael 
felt the indignation and winced beneath it. Then he 
blushed at the possibility of Driscoll's catching sight of 
him. This contingency caused him to alight suddenly as 
he descended the sixth time and retire into a shadow at a 
little distance. 






THE DESCENDANT 97 

Here he remained until the tinkle of a bell sounded from 
above, and away shot the elevator to the fifth landing. 
Upon its downward course he caught sight of the toe of a 
rubber boot and the hem of a cloth skirt, and his heart 
leaped within him. Then, as she alighted, he hastened 
forward. 

" I have been waiting for you," he said. 

" Indeed !" Her eyes narrowed. " Oh, dear," she smiled, 
"we're becoming quite civilized." 

" I am not," he retorted, angrily. 

"I was merely alluding to external indications." 

She wore a trim little coat of brown cloth, with a fur 
tippet about her throat, and in her hand carried a large 
muff. He noticed that she wore his violets, but she did 
not allude to them, nor did he. Her hat cast a slight shadow 
across her forehead, and the same shadow seemed reflected 
in her eyes. 

" I was waiting for you," he repeated. 

" Really ?" The dimples beside her eyes ran riot, her 
mouth twitched. " I thought you had developed a mania 
for riding in the elevator," she said. 

" Did you see me ?" 

She nodded. 

" I feared that I might miss you. I have been lying in 
wait for an hour." 

" In wait ! and the prey ?" 

" You were the prey." 

" How exciting !" 

She threw back her head, and the shadow passed from 
her forehead. Her eyes grew dark. An atmosphere of 
illusiveness hovered about her. He could not comprehend 
her, and in that lay her charm. Her sweetness, her mirth, 
her audacity were so evanescent that before he closed upon 
a mood it escaped him. 

" And what do you want ?" 

The desire for mastery waxed strong within him. 

" I want you," he retorted, boldly. 



98 THE DESCENDANT 

"Oh, mortal, thy demand is insatiable!" The ring of 
bravado in her tones angered him -, his will smarted from 
the friction. 

" Let me go with you to-day," he said. The words were 
pleading, but his manner masterful. " Show me how to 
have a holiday." 

She rebelled. " I am going to see Dupont, and you can't 
go there." 

" And then ?" 

"To the Metropolitan Museum. I spend every New- 
year's Day at the Metropolitan." 

" Take me. I have never been." 

"Heathen!" 

"Take me." 

She laughed good-naturedly. Unconsciously her hand 
wandered to the violets upon her breast. He noticed that 
the hand was white and strong, with fingers cut square at 
the tips ; not a beautiful hand in itself, but beautiful in the 
delicacy of its touch. A hand with the power of a man 
and the lightness of a woman. "Very well," she said, as 
yielding from sheer amiability, "as you please. Meet 
me at the Museum at one. I must hurry." Nodding 
gayly, she ran down the steps and out into the street. 
Here her pace slackened, and she gingerly picked her way 
along the slippery sidewalk. The cold brought a swift 
color to her cheeks, in her furs she looked like a ruddy 
incarnation of warmth. 

Some hours later she stood upon the corner of Four 
teenth Street and Fifth Avenue awaiting the stage. As it 
passed she hailed it and got in so hastily that she was pre 
cipitated into the arms of a stout gentleman, who ex 
claimed " Dear me !" in an irritated aside, after depositing 
her upon the seat beside him. Then he glanced at her, and 
the irritation vanished as he offered to pass her fare. As 
the stage jolted along it seemed to jolt her thoughts into a 
confused jumble of unassorted ideas. Since morning her 
mind had stubbornly confronted Michael Akershem, her 



THE DESCENDANT 99 

will as stubbornly kept him at bay. Some dominant, mag 
netic force attracted even as it repelled her. So powerful 
it was that it seemed to compel rather than allure ; the 
force of a Wallenstein that beat his followers to his banner. 
In a woman less self-sufficient than Rachel the strength 
of the man might have inspired an aversion purely femi 
nine ; but to Rachel there was a glorious suggestion of mas 
tery that quickened her to combat. A nature as indepen 
dent as her own must subdue before a weaker one could 
gain the power to attract. It was the power that she wot- 
shipped, and power there was and to spare in Michael 
Akershem. 

In her abstraction she allowed herself to be carried a 
block beyond her destination, and her walk across the 
park was considerably lengthened thereby. Beyond the 
enclosed streets the temperature seemed to fall twenty de 
grees. The cold was so penetrating that her blood was 
quickened to rapid action, and the air, entering her lungs, 
caused her a sharp physical pain. She passed from a walk 
into a run, and sped lightly along the avenue. 

About her the snow lay in an immaculate carpet, untar 
nished by the soot of the city. From the trees icicles hung 
like diamond pendants, and the slender branches cast long, 
purple-toned shadows upon the untrodden ground. 

Into the hall Rachel darted with breathless haste. At 
the far end Michael was leaning against a pillar. As he 
saw her the light fell across his face like the falling of a 
sunbeam. He smiled and held out his hand. 

" It is so cold !" wailed Rachel. " My poor nose ! It is 
frozen. I know it is frozen !" 

She looked at him wistfully. Upon her lashes a tear 
trembled, and it sparkled beneath the brightness of her 
glance like a drop of sunshine. 

Michael eyed her critically. 

"I don't think it is frozen," he answered, seriously, "be 
cause it is pink. When it freezes it turns blue. I know, 
because our office boy got his frost-bitten last week." 






100 THE DESCENDANT 

She laughed until the tear-drops melted and rained down. 

"Oh, dear!" she cried, "what consolation! Not blue, 
but pink. There is salvation in the shade." And she 
buried her face in her muff. 

They crossed the hall, and he drew her over a register. 
Then she seated herself upon a bench with her back to the 
mummy of an Egyptian lady. He looked at her with a de 
vouring earnestness. From beneath the brim of her hat 
her hair fell in dark curves, and about her throat the soft 
fur rose until it rested against her cheek. She asked him 
if he had waited long, and he answered, "Not long at 
least, it didn't seem so." 

" You had pleasant thoughts ?" 

"Very. My stock has risen." 

" I could have come sooner," she observed; "but it's just 
as well that I didn't, you were so charmingly engaged." 

The spirit of mischief quickened within her. She smiled 
upon him, he frowned upon her. 

" Why do you treat me so ?" he asked. " You seem al 
ways laughing at me." 

" It's a pity you have no sense of humor. You would 
find yourself so diverting." 

His face grew blacker. 

" I don't like i't !" he exclaimed. " Stop." 

She rose and gave herself a little shake. " Come," she 
said, " I will take you to my shrine." 

They mounted the stairs, and she showed him her favorite 
paintings, laughing good-naturedly at his ignorance. 

" Some day," she said, " you shall give me a sitting. I'll 
paint you in yellow ochre with a crown of withered leaves. 
It would make a fine subject for * Melancholia.' " Then she 
led him through a doorway, crying, " Shut your eyes !" He 
obeyed, and she drew him forward a few feet. "Look!" 
she said ; and he looked, and looked into the eyes of the 
" Joan of Arc." " It is my gospel," she said. " I would 
like to keep an altar -lamp burning before it, and to say 
prayers morning and night." 



THE DESCENDANT IOI 

it it looks a little eccentric," he remarked, from the 
depths of his ignorance. 

" For shame, blasphemer !" Then she gave a little cry and 
fell behind him. " Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! There's a wretch 
coming to copy. Run ! I wouldn't see his canvas for worlds. 
It's a sacrilege !" She fled precipitately, he following. They 
sat down, and she gave him her muff to hold. It was so 
soft and fluffy and warm that he felt as though he were 
holding a part of herself. He turned his nervous gaze upon 
her face ; the light of his eyes mellowed and grew tender. 

" Do you know," he began, and paused and began again 
" do you know that you are the only woman I have ever 
known ?" 

" Pardon me, but weren't you brought up by the hand of 
Mrs. Watkins ?" 

" She was a fiend." 

" Shade of Mrs. Watkins, arise !" exclaimed Rachel. 

" I hated women," he continued, " until I met you." 

" Your limited experience destroys the compliment." 

"If I had known thousands," he retorted, angrily, "it 
would have made no difference. I should have hated them 
all except you." 

" You are very amiable." 

He turned upon her in a blaze of wrath. " How dare 
you ?" he demanded " how dare you treat me so ?" 

She paled slightly beneath his passionate gaze and her 
lashes trembled. Then she raised her eyes to his and the 
light in them blinded him. 

" I will conquer you yet," he said, the desire for mastery 
surging within him. 

"Oh, young Alexander!" she retorted, defiantly, "is not 
the world enough ? Do you sigh for the impossible ?" 

"The impossible?" he emphasized. 

"The impossible," her eyes laughed. 

Then she stood up and turned to beam upon him. " There 
is such a thing as luncheon," she suggested. "And see 
how we shock that prim lady in spectacles." 



102 THE DESCENDANT 

He made a gesture of impatience. " What does it mat 
ter?" he returned. "But are you hungry?" 

" Starving." 

They descended to the basement, and ate their omelet 
beneath an appetizing study of John the Baptist's head re 
posing upon an unwieldy trencher. 

" There is nothing quite so satisfying as food," remarked 
Rachel, radiantly, as she sipped her tea. 

" I don't see how you can get so hungry," retorted 
Michael. " I forget all about food when I am happy, but 
you don't seem to." 

" Never !" she applied herself to her omelet with re 
newed zeal " constancy is my one virtue." 

But Michael had grown serious, and when, a little later, 
they returned to the gallery, he fell back upon the old sub 
ject. " You are a puzzle to me," he said " a surprise puz 
zle of which one can never be quite sure. You are tanta 
lizing." 

" Am I ?" she smiled. 

"You are independent so terribly independent." 

"Yes, yes," she assented. 

" Is it always so ?" he asked. " Do you never feel the 
need of something else of love ?" 

"Why, I have so much of it. I assure you, I adore my 
self." 

"Not that! not that!" he exclaimed; " but well but 
love ?" 

"There are many varieties. I suppose you mean the 
matrimonially inclined ?" 

He nodded. 

" Well, I never feel the need of it." 

"Never?" 

"Never; do you?" She laughed into his eyes. Her 
audacity exasperated him. 

" How provoking you are !" he said. 

She rose, fastened her coat, and held out her hand for 
her muff. 



THE DESCENDANT 103 

"I have wasted an afternoon upon you," she said, "un 
grateful creature." 

" I am not ungrateful I " he reached out his hand and 
touched hers as it lay upon the back of the bench. She 
did not withdraw it, and his eyes grew gentle. A person 
with a catalogue sauntered by and surveyed them disap 
provingly. 

"Do you know," he said, "that I have seen a danger- 
signal and I did not heed it?" 

"Indeed!" 

His eyes glimmered between his twitching lids like burn 
ing coals. She felt his gaze upon her and shifted uneasily. 

" And I would not heed it," he continued, hotly, " though 
I were rushing to hell." 



CHAPTER VII 

IN her abhorrence of a vacuum, Nature, for the further 
ance of her favorite hobby, has often to resort to strange 
devices. If she could but understand that vacuity is some 
times better than superfluity ! 

In the making of Michael Akershem, she had been lavish 
of expenditure ; there was much in his composition that 
might have been safely dispensed with, leaving society and 
himself none the worse. 

The mental energy confined within the storehouse of his 
brain was in a continual state of ebullition, escaping in 
magnetic currents through the will or the senses, as the 
case might be. 

This fund of nervous power, forever transforming yet 
never at rest, fed, as it were, upon his physical constitution, 
demanding always some extraneous force upon which to 
expend itself. 

A cross between a civilized and an uncivilized nature, a 
strangely complex organism, had been the result ; a primi 
tive revolt from restraint and disregard of consequences, 
and yet a half-refined sensitiveness to the force of the con 
sequences when they appeared to overwhelm him. Be 
neath all his blatant, loud-voiced clamor against custom 
perhaps there existed a shade of regret (inherited from the 
father who had sinned in secret and suffered not) that re 
spectability, which he appeared to scorn, had scorned him 
in reality. The scoffing may have been the revenge of the 
worm that stings the heel which treads it down, but that 
left at peace in the mire might have entertained quite a 
reverence for the oppressor of its fellows. 

Having been impelled in a given direction, he had on the 



THE DESCENDANT 105 

rebound gone somewhat beyond the normal standard. In 
time, would the reactionary force become exhausted and 
the organism return to its allotted sphere ? Who could 
say? 

As yet there was more profundity than latitude in his 
nature more intensity than endurance. The habits of his 
life had developed an almost abnormal fund of egoism, 
causing him to consider every detail of existence from a 
relative standpoint. But for all that, he was sincere and 
earnest enough ; narrow, it may be, and strongly intolerant, 
but the intolerance itself was but the offshoot of an intense 
vitality. Swift, eccentric, forever seeking satisfaction and 
never finding it, in his nature the ethereal element was not 
wanting ; he was mind, as it were, without spirit, intellect 
without soul. Until meeting Rachel Gavin he had enter 
tained settled convictions, principles he called them, con 
cerning his individual relation to the race. A twentieth- 
century moralist could hold no more stoical doctrines re 
garding the essence and quintessence of love. A month 
ago he would have sworn to them before any jury in the 
State, and now, all unconsciously to himself, they were melt 
ing like the shadows of dawn before the sunrise. 

One evening, a windy evening in March, he stood with 
Rachel in her studio. He had brought her some books, 
and she was idly running the leaves through her fingers as 
she talked. The gray light came softly in and fell over her, 
lending to the white outline of her face a sombreness akin 
to the wind-swept sky without. 

" How ignorant I am, after all," said Rachel " I mean, 
how ignorant I am about real things : science and facts and 
human life ! I am clever about painting I can draw in 
charcoal and I can put in colors with a good hand ; but I 
must be naturally very dull, because my effort in that line 
has drained all my intellectuality and left my brain a mere 
waste of nondescript matter. It's a pity to tell you, if you 
haven't observed it, but I'm not clever." ' 

"Your confession is unnecessary," said Michael. 



106 THE DESCENDANT 

" I used to read," Rachel continued, turning her face 
with the gray light still over it towards him, "but of late 
I've given it up. When one works all day, one can't study, 
can one ?" 

"Yes, one can," said Michael. "The will finds the way 
in most things." 

She frowned and looked up at him ; he smiled and looked 
down upon her. 

" How do you suppose I read ?" he asked. " Do you sup 
pose I was brought up to follow my own fancies ? Do you 
know that as a boy I ploughed the only field that was 
ploughed upon the farm and left my ploughing at night, 
tired and hungry, to grind away at political economy ? 
Many were the mornings I got up by candle-light, trying to 
get in an hour of reading before the cattle had to be watered 
and the horses groomed. You may call it ambition and 
praise it, if you will, but it was not ambition, and there is 
nothing praiseworthy about it. It was a selfish desire to 
know more than those people, that I might be more than 
they, and so turn and spit upon them. Hate was my spur, 
not ambition. They looked down upon an illegitimate hire 
ling from their plane of respectability ; but one day I knew 
the hireling should look down upon them and their legiti 
macy. It was for that I worked, for that I toiled, for that 
I studied. The minister lent me what books he had ; 
those that he didn't have I borrowed from the school 
master without his knowledge. If a book could have taught 
me anything and I couldn't have borrowed it, I should 
have stolen it. As it was, I read Mill, Jevons, Marshall, 
Fawcett, and the rest. The first three dollars that I earned 
went to a year's subscription to the Humboldt Library, 
though at the time I hadn't a whole coat to my back." 

He paused abruptly and Rachel looked up at him again, 
the firelight flickering where the gray light had been. Her 
face was flushed, her eyes soft, and there was a half-smile 
about her mouth. 

" And this has made you ?" she said. 



THE DESCENDANT IO7 

"This made me toil, unceasingly toil." 

And he spoke truly. By roughness he was moulded, by 
bitterness warped. A creature of impulse, he was without 
the judgment that a systematic training imparts ; the emo 
tional side of his nature was easily aroused, and, unless 
checkmated by will, prevailed. 

" I'm sure," Rachel was saying, " I don't need all these 
books to convince me of evolution. I've read The Evo 
lution of the Horse, and believe in it. I've forgotten who 
wrote it, but I know that I paid twelve and one-half cents 
for it, and that I read it every morning for a week in my 
bath. It was so interesting that I sometimes forgot and 
stayed in the water too long, and, after I had finished it, I 
had pneumonia. The book used to get so soapy and wet, 
and the last page was entirely obliterated, but it was de 
licious, and it convinced me perfectly." 

" How like a woman !" exclaimed Michael. The girl had 
spoken lightly, rippling with merriment. She tossed her 
head with a little defiant gesture, and the dark coil of hair 
slipped from its place, falling in a heavy wave upon her 
shoulders. Then, as she put up her hand to rearrange it, 
her lips curved and quivered in their sensitive, bewitching 
way. 

" Rachel !" said Michael. He said it warmly, and before 
the curve had died upon her lips he stooped and kissed her. 

Rachel gasped a moment in her surprise ; and then, with 
a fierce movement, she pushed him from her. " How how 
dare you ?" she cried. " I always did hate to kiss men ! 
How dare you ?" 

And she darted past him into the adjoining room, slam 
ming the door after her. The next moment Michael could 
have kicked himself; but being a man, and never venting 
his wrath upon himself when there was anything else 
around, he kicked a chair instead, and went down-stairs and 
out into the street. He was conscious that the strongest 
conviction he had ever entertained was the present one 
that he was a fool. 



108 THE DESCENDANT 

" Now I've gone and done it," he thought, forcibly, " and 
there's an end." 

Going to his office, he met Driscoll, who was leaving, and 
who inquired what was up. 

"The devil's up," replied Michael. 

" In that case there're two of them on the earth," said 
Driscoll, " and we're that much worse off than we thought. 
I've had one round my way for the past week ; he's been en 
tertaining me with rheumatism, and, by Jove ! if he doesn't 
leave off I'll cut and run. I've been regularly down in the 
depths. I always thought civilization didn't agree with me, 
and now I know it. I have had the blues to distraction for a 
fortnight, and it will soon be Florida or Blackwell's Island." 

" Thought your optimism wasn't good for much ; but, 
Driscoll" 

"Optimism ! Say, old man, don't slander a fellow. I'm 
willing to answer for the special sins which I have achieved 
myself, but I don't like having them thrust upon me. The 
phases of my life have about run through, and it has been 
a steady, downward course. First I was an idealist (that 
was early fools are born, not made, you know) ; next I 
was a realist ; now I am a pessimist, and, by Jove ! if things 
get much worse I'll become a humorist." 

" Hardly," said Michael. " A man does not laugh at life 
until he finds it worthless. As long as he places any value 
upon it he regards it seriously. It's a bore !" 

" By-the-bye, Shem, run down to Florida with me." 

"No." 

" You may have all the oranges you can find." 

" No !" 

"You may fish for tadpoles." 

" No !" 

"Ah, you're incorrigible! It's no good. I'm thinking 
of going down myself, solely for the sake of getting rid of 
animal food. I've become a vegetarian ; a man with indi 
gestion should eat only unbolted flour and vegetables. 
I've been dieting for a week, and you shall see the result." 



THE DESCENDANT 



I0g 



" Another fad ?" 

" No fad about it honest fact. Follow my example. 
Make them use unbolted flour wherever you breakfast, and 
don't let them mix any of their damned nonsense in the 
vegetables. Take them straight." 

" Shall you be at the Iconoclast Society next week ?" 

" If I am not in Florida. I've an engagement to dine. 
Good-night." 

Michael went on his way heavily despondent. Would 
she ever forgive him ? Did she realize what a confounded 
fool he was ? How would it end ? She was so practical ; 
so far from any vapid sentimentality; so far above the miry 
shallows of love in which he was floundering. All night 
he dreamed restlessly of her anger and its consequences, 
and came down, haggard and white, in the morning, to find 
Rachel starting out to the art school. 

She nodded and smiled gayly as she passed out, and he 
ate a hearty breakfast in the ecstasy of his relief. 

"She has forgiven me, bless her," he thought; but with 
Rachel it was less forgiveness than forgetfulness. Until 
meeting him at breakfast she had not remembered his ex 
istence ; the kiss had been merely the cause of a moment's 
resentment, and then she had forgotten it, as she usually 
managed to forget sentimental episodes. She considered 
them merely as melodramatic interludes in the drama of 
life ; after the interest of the moment they fell away and 
left one as unaffected as the ripples leave a mountain lake. 
Sentiment is one of the side-lights thrown upon life to give 
it coloring nothing more. 

For several days Michael did not go to the studio. He 
was restless and distraught ; if he was spoken to he snarled, 
if not he grumbled. Love for Rachel had entered into his 
being, consuming him with its intensity. Because she was 
far off and unattainable, the intensity increased fourfold. 
Some natures love only that which is beyond them : a 
star in the highest heaven, a flower beyond the meadow 
fence. Michael's was one of these. It is well for them if 



110 THE DESCENDANT 

the star sets not within their reach, if the flower blooms 
and withers beyond the bars ; it is well for them, and it is 
better for the star and the flower. 

We may sigh for our ideals, and sob for them as children 
for the moon ; but if we grasp them and they fall to pieces, 
which is the way with ideals, we throw them aside and bind 
our bleeding hands. And when the wounds have healed we 
look about for fresh ideals, leaving the broken ones strewn 
upon the mire. 

At the end of three days he went to her again. It was 
light enough for work, and Rachel was cleaning her palette 
near the window. She held a small scraper in her hand. 
He noticed that she looked tired, the purple shadows under 
her eyes had darkened, and her face was white. She was 
so small, so childlike, so lovable to him at least, that a sud 
den tenderness overwhelmed him. 

" Rachel," he said, " will you listen to me ?" 

Rachel looked slightly bored. 

" Not if it is long, please," she answered. " If it's to be 
long, I'd rather not. I am just as tired as I can be." 

" It is not long," he answered. " It is very short ; it is 
only that I love you." 

" I wish you wouldn't," she said, pettishly. " I can't bear 
love-making , it's silly." 

" It is not silly," he answered, " and it is not love-mak 
ing ; it is love earnest, absorbing love. You may do what 
you please afterwards, but you must listen to me now. I 
tell you I love you ! I love you ! I love you ! I have never 
said these words before in my life, and I never shall again. 
They are meant for you, and you alone. I don't want an 
answer from you. I would ask no woman to share my life ; 
it would mean pain and humiliation to her. It would 
mean But I love you ! I love you ! No, you can't get 
away; you shall hear me again I love you !" 

He spoke rapidly, his lips trembling, his face white, his 
magnetic gaze illuminating her, scorching her, as though 
the scintillating flame were shafts of fire. He reached for- 



THE DESCENDANT 



III 



ward and took her hands, holding them firmly in his own, 
and bending still upon her that rapt, impassioned glance. 

The girl shivered, trembled, and paled until her face 
seemed of marble. A sudden fear dawned in her eyes; 
they grew dark with suppressed tears. Then, with an effort, 
she broke from him in a tempest of wrath. 

" You are cruel ! cruel ! cruel !" she cried. " Why do you 
come and make me miserable with your nonsense ? Why 
can't you leave me in peace ? I wish I had never seen you ! 
I hate you ! I hope I shall never see you again ! I hate 
you ! I hate you !" 

And she threw herself upon the couch and burst into 
tears. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MADAME LAROQUE was a lady who had had an experi 
ence. Now, experiences affect different women in different 
ways. It is principally a question of proportion : either the 
experience is too big for the woman and it effaces her, or 
the woman is too big for the experience and she effaces it. 
Unfortunately, Madame Laroque came under the first head ; 
her experience was so large that it had overwhelmed her, 
and she had never entirely ceased trembling from the 
shock. The more she thought of it, the more it surprised 
her; the more it surprised her, the more she thought of it; 
and the bigger the experience got, the smaller became 
Madame Laroque. 

One day Madame was sick in her room, and towards 
evening she sent for Miss Gavin to come and read to her. 
Madame never read any book but the Bible. She said it 
was the only book that she was absolutely sure contained 
no allusion to Frenchmen. 

" And even if the Lord did include them in the faithless 
and perverse generation," she said, " it is less than they de 
serve." Madame had known only one Frenchman, but she 
generalized. Where is philosophy without generalization ? 

Rachel read the Psalms. David was a high-spirited man, 
Madame said, and she admired him, he knew so well how 
to get away with his enemies. She listened complacently, 
lying back among the pillows, her small hands playing ner 
vously with the sheet. Madame was of a religious tempera 
ment; her wall was covered with a number of rather ques 
tionable Madonnas ; at the head of her bed hung a little 
Florentine altar, upon which she kept a lamp continually 
burning. I think she had a vague idea that it was an offer- 



THE DESCENDANT 113 

ing by which Providence was bribed to protect her from an 
influx of foreigners. Whether the terms were accepted or 
not is doubtful, but so far Madame dwelt unmolested. 

Rachel read the Psalms, and then closed the book and 
leaned back in her chair. There was something infinitely 
soothing to her in some of the measured phrases. A swift, 
luxurious tenderness, which is the sheath of religious senti 
ment, enveloped her. 

" As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth 
my soul after thee, O God." 

She was looking at the red flame flickering before the 
altar, and suddenly she felt that if Madame were away she 
would like to go up to it and rest her head upon the altar- 
cloth, and clasp her hands before the red flame, and implore 
peace and protection. 

Then, with an effort, she shook herself free from the de 
sire, and glanced at the Madonnas upon the wall ; she 
wondered why Madonnas always reminded one of sheep. 
" Why couldn't they paint a reasonable-looking one ?" she 
thought. " I'm sure it's a mistake to think that holiness 
and imbecility are synonymous. I wish I could do one. I 
should make it more symbolical of mind, less of matter." 

" I was just like you," Madame was saying, "when I was 
your age." 

Rachel started and looked at Madame Laroque. She 
wondered if her expression could ever become as inane. 

" I think that hardly possible," she said. 

"I don't mean in appearance," continued Madame, 
"though I was considered a very pretty girl. I mean in 
mind and ambition." 

Rachel started again. 

"I might have been an artist," Madame went dreamily 
on, "if I hadn't been a fool instead." 

Rachel was relieved by the explanation. 

"Yes?" she said. 

"I am sure no one thought me a fool until I married," 
said Madame. " I had quite a talent for painting. I did 



114 THE DESCENDANT 

several beautiful pastels. Poor, dear papa was so proud 
of them he had them framed and hung in the parlor ; one 
was a lake with an island and some swans floating around. 
But I gave up my ambition for marriage ; it's the way with 
women. You'll do it some day." 

" Never !" said Rachel. She said it so sharply that 
Madame was alarmed, thinking she might have missed a 
noise on the stairs. 

" Yes," she said, " you'll give up your art, as I did. The 
more sensible a woman is, the bigger fool she becomes 
when she falls in love. I suppose the Lord intended it. 
I guess He knew if he made women any smarter the race 
would come to a stop. I guess He knows best at least, He 
ought to ; but it does seem strange to me that He couldn't 
have found a better way to arrange things." 

Madame had talked rapidly ; she was excited, and her 
usual placidity was broken ; a little pink flush had risen to 
her cheeks. 

"If you want to be miserable," said Madame, " marry; 
if you want to be more so, marry a Frenchman." 

" I shall not marry," said Rachel, curtly, but Madame 
paid no heed to her. 

" Frenchmen are dirty," she said. " They chew bad 
tobacco and beat their wives." The fact that M. Laroque 
had acquired both habits upon American soil in no wise 
modified Madame's convictions. " They're a bad lot," she 
said. 

Rachel placed the book upon the table, nodded good 
bye to Madame Laroque, and went down-stairs. She was 
thinking; for weeks she had been groping in the dusk of a 
terrible uncertainty. Slowly she was awakening to the 
knowledge that a change was taking place in her life in 
herself ; some indescribable distraction, some mental rest 
lessness hindering the progress of her work. She had 
been unhappy and uneasy; the hand with which she held 
her brush faltered ; for the first time in her life the stroke 
of the artist was not -firm. It was maddening her; it was 



THE DESCENDANT 115 

as if she were passing through some period of mental fever. 
Her pulse was high ; its every throb was quickened into 
unhealthy action. She began to look at things from an 
abnormal standpoint; she was no longer frank and unfet 
tered. " What is it ?" she asked, but she could not answer ; 
she only laid her brushes aside, and, resting her head upon 
her palette, wept the bitterest tears of her life. 

Something had come between her and her art a terrible 
shadow, looming dark and tall, casting its black length 
across all her brilliant future. For weeks she had felt its 
presence. She had but to turn her head and she would 
find the shadow at her elbow, waiting to take the brush 
from her wavering hand, waiting to obliterate the colors 
from the canvas, waiting to walk beside her for ever and 
ever. 

She shivered and shrank back; she looked upon her 
unfinished picture the great Magdalen ; she stretched out 
her hands with a bewildered, appealing gesture. " O God, 
anything but that anything but that, O my God ! my God !" 

She threw herself upon her knees beside it, her bowed 
head resting against the outlined hem of the painted wom 
an's garment. It was the hour of supreme self-abnegation, 
the hour when she saw the toil of her life stretching back 
amidst a desert waste and stretching onward to nothingness. 
She had reared the temple of her aspirations upon her own 
heart, and she saw it shiver and crumble to its foundations, 
a dart hurled by her own faithless hand. 

" Not that," she prayed, " not that. Only let me live for 
my work. I ask so little so little ; I only ask to work 
work work. Steel my heart, make me cruel, hideous, 
wicked anything but leave me my work." 

She prayed as a stranger might have prayed who saw a 
great thing, unknown to him, lured to destruction. She saw 
with the eye of the mind -, from the watch-tower of the in 
tellect she looked down into the heart, and writhed and was 
sickened at the sight. It was as if a devil and an angel 
warred within her, one chaining her to the flesh and to 



Il6 THE DESCENDANT 

earth, the other drawing her upward to the heaven of the 
mind. 

Said the devil, " You are tired of toil ; put it by. Laugh, 
love, live, as other women live ; and then die and be for 
gotten, as other women are forgotten. It comes to the 
same in the end. Life is sweet love." 

Said the angel, in its still, small voice, " There is a heaven 
to be reached a heaven of the knowledge of work well 
done ; the way to do it lies through barren ways, up steep 
mountain-sides, and along desert wastes ; alone you must 
set out to it, alone you will reach it." 

Still they warred and wrestled within her, and she crouched 
like a hunted thing upon the floor. For weeks she had not 
put in a stroke. Her mind was dazed and confused ; the 
old inspiration had flown before the dark presence. She 
took up a brush, but her hand faltered and she let it fall. 
She sat before her easel, and her thoughts fluttered like 
swallows before they settle to rest. She had grown white 
and thin ; the shadows under her eyes looked like the 
marks of inky fingers. The old, independent, audacious 
air had left her ; she had grown self-centred and intense. 

"What is it?" asked Charles Dupont, the critic. "Ra 
chel, it is that your heart is not in it ; get it back, my child, 
get it back, or your work is over. A woman is not like a 
man a man may have many interests, a woman but one, 
or they are all worthless." 

"It is not fair!" cried Rachel, passionately, "it is not 
fair! Why should men have everything in this world?" 

"Ask the Creator, my child ; He willed it, not I." 

Rachel had gone furiously to work. She stood before 
the glass, shaking her clinched fist at her image. " Rachel 
Gavin," she said, " you are a fool an utter, utter fool !" 

Then she shut herself in her studio and set to work. For 
six hours she did not leave her easel ; her lips were firmly 
set, her eyes were strained with determination. She worked 
without pausing, without looking up, but without inspira 
tion. It was an effort, and she knew it. Some hidden 



THE DESCENDANT 1 17 

undercurrent of feeling was retarding thought ; the old ab 
sorbed concentration had become impossible to her ; a dis 
tracting duality of interest was weakening every stroke of 
her brush. Let her will rebel as it would, it could not domi 
nate emotion. Thought and feeling were at strife ; one 
must triumph before peace was restored. In a man, thought 
would have risen mighty and victorious, surveying with calm 
neutrality the ruins of the heart's passion, or, it may be, bal 
ancing the opposing forces in the scales of judgment ; in a 
woman ah, when does love triumph that it has not throttled 
reason ? Great love it is strong to suffer, fearless to bear 
pain, mighty to sacrifice, but rearing its fair and holy tem 
ple upon the ashes of ambition. 

The light grew fainter, a long ray of April sunshine came 
in at the open window, stretching across the faded carpet, 
across the Japanese screen in the corner, across the couch 
before the fire, and across the canvas upon which the girl 
worked. It illumined the strong, bold figure of the Mag 
dalen, the unrestrained drawing of pose, the repentant 
droop of the head, the passion and misery and sin. The 
colors seemed to take fire and glow with a living flame. 
Over Rachel's bowed head the same sweet sunlight fell, 
resting about her white brow like an aureole. The graven 
intensity of her face had the look of Parian marble. She 
was making her last throw for ambition, her last struggle 
against nature and her own heart. 

The little silver clock upon the mantel, with the little 
silver bird swinging to and fro, rang out the hour. It was 
growing late ; the sunlight was fading westward. In the 
streets below men and women were going homeward from 
their work. At least, they could work ; they were not de 
nied that. It was better to roll cigarettes in a factory or 
stitch cotton shirts than to sink into a drone, losing hour 
by hour the toil of a lifetime the ambition of an eternity. 
She rose and laid her brushes by. 

" I will work," she said, and she clasped her hands above 
her head, drawing back to look upon her picture. The 



Il8 .THE DESCENDANT 

figure loomed boldly upon the canvas, the drawing was the 
drawing of a master. Rachel smiled softly with happiness 
that, at least, would not fail her. She looked at the face 
upon which she had been working the mouth, the eyes, the 
brow. The eyes looked back at her, rapt and pregnant 
with a great foreshadowing ; the mouth seemed to quiver 
with the memory of a past. 

Then the girl gave a little convulsive shudder and moaned 
aloud, for the face had the look of Michael Akershem. 

" O God !" she sobbed, her frame shaken with tearless 
sobs. Her heart was rent, the ambition of a lifetime un 
done. To a woman the mental toil of an eternity may 
sink to nothingness before one heart-throb. 

Then, as she clung sobbing to her easel, there was a knock 
at the door. It opened, and Michael Akershem came in. 

He glanced at her with a quick surprise, started back 
ward and then forward again. 

"Miss Gavin," he said " Rachel, what is it?" 

The tears started to Rachel's eyes and stung her like 
melted fire. She flushed and shrank away. 

" I don't know," she said. " I can't work ; I am wretched 
wretched." And then she wrung her hands with a des 
perate gesture. 

He came and stood beside her, taking her cold hands 
very gently in his. He would have looked at the canvas, 
but she drew him away with a cry. 

" Don't don't you must not you shall not look at it !" 

But he did look at it, and to him it seemed only a strong, 
beautiful figure, the work of a master hand. " It is great," 
he said. 

" Oh, how can you ?" cried Rachel. " I have ruined it 
ruined it. I would have given my life for it, and I have 
ruined it !" 

" Ruined it ? Impossible," he said. " Why, it is magnifi 
cent. Are you mad ?" 

For the girl had thrown the curtain over it with a frantic 
haste. " I am wretched ! wretched !" she cried. 



THE DESCENDANT Iig 

Michael held her from him and looked into her face. 

" Rachel," he said, " trust me." 

The girl lifted her head and looked at him, the tear-drops 
trembling upon her lashes, her mouth quivering. For a mo 
ment the man was silent; he was struggling as she had 
struggled between love and reason. As with her, will and 
emotion were unevenly matched. The stronger prevailed. 
A sudden tumultuous joy took possession of him, putting 
all other consciousness to flight. " Rachel P he said ; 
" dearest !" He drew her towards him ; he lifted her head, 
looking down into her eyes. The eyes were hot with his 
image, and he saw it. 

" Dearest," he said again, " dearest !" and he kissed her 
upon brow and lips. His kisses scorched her like fire, his 
gaze burned her like a flame. 

And Rachel gave up the struggle. A sudden intense, 
illusive happiness sent the blood beating to her pulses 
and a warmer light to her face. She forgot her work her 
art her ambition. She had sold them all for this, and 
she did not regret her bargain ; she would have sold 
them again, and gladly, assisting with dry eyes at the sac 
rifice. 

" You love me, Rachel ?" He spoke imperatively. 

" Love you !" With a passionate sob she threw back 
her head, stamping her foot upon the floor. " Don't you 
see that I love you ?" she cried. " My God ! I can't help 
it ; I love you !" 

" Oh, my beloved!" His kisses fell hotly upon her quiv 
ering lips. But as he caught her to him a latent spark of 
her old independence took fire and flamed forth. She broke 
from him. 

" It is dreadful dreadful !" she cried. 

" But, Rachel, does it make you wretched ? I am yours 
yours for life or death. I will give up my work to-mor 
row and marry you." 

The girl started. 

" Marry me ?" she repeated. " How could you ?" 



120 THE DESCENDANT 

He smiled, and, catching her outstretched hands, kissed 
them. 

"I worship you," he said. "I would throw away every 
chance of my life every hope, every principle, for you 1" 

" They would scorn and laugh at you. You have lived 
your principles for years, and now, at the first bid of a 
woman, you cast them away. Oh no ; I cannot ! I can 
not !" 

" Let them laugh at me. If I have you, what do I care, 
darling? Darling, can't you understand? I shall resign 
from my party. I have made it, and I have the right to un 
make it. I'll get a position as coal-heaver, brakeman any 
thing." 

" And in six months you would regret it. Do you think 
that a man's love can extinguish ambition ? Only a woman's 
love can do that. You would live to regret your work, your 
freedom ; you would brand yourself a traitor in your own 
eyes, and I my God! I should go mad, for I love you." 

She kissed him as he leaned above her. 

" Do you think that I could live and know that I had 
ruined your life ?" she asked. " I had rather kill myself 
now, before you had time to reproach me. I had rather 
never lay my eyes on you again. Oh, my love ! my love !" 

Rachel was young, and ignorant, as most young things 
are. She had not learned that self-immolation is the surest 
bond by which one binds one's self to another. It is not 
those who sacrifice themselves to us whom we love, but 
those to whom we sacrifice ourselves. Perhaps there is a 
fundamental principle of egoism which sustains it, but the 
fact is there ; we do not cease to value a possession which 
has cost us a great expenditure of ourselves. Self-immola 
tion on the part of another we are apt to regard lightly, 
deeming that of small value which places not a greater price 
upon itself. Oh, we are only wise in our own conceit ! 

After Michael Akershem had gone, Rachel remained 
standing before the fireplace in the gathering dusk. She 
heard his footsteps passing along the hall, she heard him 



THE DESCENDANT 121 

ring the elevator -bell, and then heard the sound of the 
ropes as it went downward. She knew that the very sound 
of his footsteps was music in her ears. Such intensity of 
emotion she had never felt before ; it was as if the fount of 
feeling within her heart, after being frozen for years, had 
thawed of a sudden and found a channel. She no longer 
repelled the thought ; she hugged it to her heart, and gloried 
in it as a mother in the joy of her child. It was new and 
strange, this swift, pulsating happiness, this illusive sense 
of life and of possession ; it was something, she thought, 
worth living for, worth dying for, worth resigning heaven 
for, and worth walking barefooted through hell to gain. It 
was happiness and it was more than happiness it was pain. 
Behind her the veiled Magdalen loomed like a visible 
forewarning, before her the ruddy coals glowed like a pas 
sionate heart of fire. She smiled and sobbed, and bowed 
her head upon her hands. 

That evening Michael delivered an ad-dress before the 
Twentieth Century Society, and was congratulated after 
wards upon having made one of the hits of his life. The 
society was composed principally of workingmeh men who, 
spending their lives in physical labor, are willing to save 
themselves mental by taking their opinions second-hand. 
A brilliant tongue and a magnetic presence are more forci 
ble than logic, and Michael possessed both. He swept 
over the universe like a thunder-cloud, lashing his audience 
into frenzy by the scorching fire of his rhetoric. He kicked 
society from one end of the platform to the other for the 
space of several hours. When he had finished society 
might have gathered itself like the Arabs and as shame 
facedly slunk away. A man who is in earnest is a power 
in the nation. By a chemical affinity he attracts as satel 
lites a host of feebler intellects whose earnestness is seek 
ing to gain a parasitic existence. One man conceives, a 
thousand re-echo his conceptions. If he is in earnest for 
good, he may act as the leaven of a people ; if for evil, his 



122 THE DESCENDANT 

influence, like a subtle poison, may extend to the uttermost 
ends of the earth. 

And Michael had many followers. His sincerity was 
contagious, his buoyant vitality overmastering. He had 
become the recognized leader of a certain enthusiastic ele 
ment youthful bodies, gravitating towards the centre of 
energy nearest their environment. He himself, having 
been forced beyond his given orbit by circumstances and 
sin, was now in turn leading where his lines had fallen, 
men in whose individual lives these circumstances had had 
no part. For sin is sweeping, and there is none so small but 
its effects may extend beyond the horizon of the sinner and 
into an existence of which he had had no ken. And, let us 
judge others as we may, it behooveth us to ascertain that the 
limits we set to our own actions are the limits of the world 
and not those of our own poor field of vision. For there 
are generations and generations in the dim dusk of futurity 
over whose pathway our shadows are gathering to a close. 

If Michael Akershem had died that night he would have left 
the germ of bitterness and revolt to quicken and bring forth 
fruit in a thousand minds, turning their day into night, as his 
had been turned by a wrong which had died to the wronger 
in the hour of its birth, for no man hath strangled an action. 

"And I am your comrade," said Rachel "your good 
comrade, for ever and ever." 

" For ever and ever," repeated Michael. 

" I shall help you with your work. I shall be your best 
and only friend. You will never be lonely and wretched 
again. Call me your comrade." 

" My blessed comrade !" 

" My hero !" 

" My star !" 

" Oh, I shall be a great help to you, never fear." 

And they caught life in their hands, and sought to mould 
it into a beautiful image. But it is less easy to mould life 
than it is to wound one's hands in the attempt. 



BOOK III 

DOMESTICATION 
" Human life is naught but error." Schiller. 



CHAPTER I 

THE editorial rooms of The Iconoclast had been put into 
unusual order; a char-woman, accompanied by a scouring- 
brush and a bucket of soapsuds, had gone over the floor, 
and the office boy had turned on every electric jet. 

To - night the Iconoclast Society, composed in part of 
stockholders and well-wishers that portion of humanity 
whose wishes have some financial balance were sitting in 
judgment upon the record of the month. 

Mr. Kyle had the chair. Mr. Kyle was a man of some 
twenty odd years, with lank, dark hair hanging in a curtain 
upon his shoulders, and an habitual air of being the Keeper 
of the World's Conscience, an office which he found so en 
grossing that, in his concern for the world's conscience, he 
was inclined to overlook the condition of his own. 

On the whole, Mr. Kyle might have been accounted wise 
had he held his peace, but, unfortunately, peace was the 
last thing to be mentioned in connection with Mr. Kyle. 
Not only was he insecure in the possession of his own, a 
condition by no means rare, but he exerted his ability to 
the utmost to prevent his neighbors from retaining theirs. 

" There is no state of peace," said Mr. Kyle, and, indeed, 
there was not if Mr. Kyle was by or in ear-shot. He was 
assistant editor of The Iconoclast. He had done more to 
promote the cause than any man living, Akershem not ex- 
cepted. He hesitated at no step to serve the party, a fact 
which the party applauded unanimously and deplored 
singly. 

Next to Kyle came Captain O'Meara, who was fat and 
fair and somewhat more than forty. Captain O'Meara was 
a jolly good fellow ; his heart was of, such excellent quality 



126 THE DESCENDANT 

that one forgot to wonder what had become of his head. 
Then came Semple, who had been unanimously elected an 
honorary member. 

Across from Kyle, with their faces to the editor's table, 
sat three gentlemen in three straight -back chairs. The 
first gentleman was very tall and very narrow metaphori 
cally speaking, he might have represented mind without 
riatter ; literally, bone without flesh. The second gentle- 
n was very short and very narrow ; his eyes had a 
strangely far-sighted look, as if he were considering the 
prospect of next year's crops upon Mars. The third 
gentleman was of a moderate height and an immoderate 
breadth ; he had a habit of smacking his lips at intervals, 
as if he hankered after the flesh-pots of Egypt. 

The three gentlemen occupied seats of honor, and 
looked like devotees before the altar of an unknown god. 
They were devotees, but at three distinct and different 
altars the first being a worshipper of Mind, the second a 
worshipper of Man, and the third a worshipper of Mammon. 
The worshipper of Mind was shrivelled, the worshipper of 
Man was shrunken, and the worshipper of Mammon was 
swollen and red of face, as if he had feasted upon the sac 
rament of his idol. The three devotees were the three 
principal stockholders, graduating in shares from the wor 
shipper of Mind up to the worshipper of Mammon, who 
could have bought out the rest of the company at a bid. 
He was the Great Mogul of the enterprise, and was re 
spected accordingly. 

Upon Kyle's right hand sat Michael Akershem, his brow 
black and frowning, and at a little distance Driscoll, his 
chair tilted backward and his hands in his pockets. He 
may not have been bored, but such was his expression. 

The rest of the company consisted of the many men that 
make a party. The aristocratic element was represented 
by Mr. Douglas Van Houne, who had, by dint of unwearied 
application, drunk himself out of the Keeley cure and into 
dypsomania ; the labor element by Pat McTibs, who was 



THE DESCENDANT 127 

bricklayer to one Watkins Mark, and father of some dozen 
children now inhabiting the city poor-house. McTibs was 
an honest man, and had been content to earn an honest 
living as long as he had the consolation of the doctrines 
of original sin and predestination to sustain him. The 
yoke of dogma had kept him securely in the path of 
sobriety, if not of righteousness. He was content to toil 
by the sweat of his brow and wrestle with temptations 
as long as such conduct warranted him the privilege of 
a heavenly seat looking hellward. But what is the use 
of keeping to the narrow path if our neighbors are not 
damned for going astray ? In a moment of missionary 
zeal Kyle had succeeded in opening McTibs's eyes to the 
futility of things hoped for, and the enormity of his making 
an honest living when he might make a dishonest one in 
stead. He represented to him the beauty of Communism, 
that blessed state, when by forking out your own penny 
you may pocket your neighbor's shilling. McTibs realized 
that Communism was the one thing needful ; the road to 
Communism lay in throttling Society. He attempted to 
throttle Society, which resulted in his being in The Icono- 
da st editorial rooms and his children in the city poor-house. 

As for his wife well, Kyle had converted her also. He 
had persuaded her that marriage was deceitful, and morality 
was vain ; and, being persuaded, she had hanged herself. 

Who shall say that The Iconoclast had not a purpose to 
serve ? 

Kyle was speaking excitedly, which was by no means 
unusual, as he was always excited and generally speaking. 
Driscoll was listening languidly, contorted between a laugh 
and a yawn. Semple was drumming upon the table with 
his finger-tips ; he was slightly startled and somewhat du 
bious ; once he had interrupted Kyle to say : " Be temper 
ate, my dear sir, be temperate !" He looked as a child 
might that is watching a toy serpent develop into a boa- 
constrictor. 

" We are standing amidst a rotten rubbish-heap," Kyle 



128 THE DESCENDANT 

was declaring, enforcing his words by the unrestrained use 
of his forefinger. "We see around us the decaying rem 
nants of Society, a monster that gorges itself upon the 
blood of Labor!" ("Hear! hear!" from McTibs.) "We 
see a foul and polluted system gradually crumbling to dust ! 
It is for us to complete the work of destruction to hurl, 
Prometheus-like, a dart at our gigantic foe ! To wrestle 
with the dragon until it is overthrown ! We have power to 
check its bloody course, we may save the millions that 
perish yearly beneath this social juggernaut !" (" Be tem 
perate, my dear sir, be temperate !" from Semple.) "We 
see wretchedness and poverty and crime around us, and for 
this wretchedness, this poverty, this crime,, Society is re 
sponsible! For all the evils stalking abroad to-day, evils 
glutted with human lives, preying upon the rights of man 
hood for these Society must be held to a strict account ! 
We see nakedness in a land of wealth ! We see starvation in 
a land of plenty ! We have shared the misery of the multitude 
our hearts are withered, the springs of our life dry and 
athirst!" (" Hear! hear !" from Mr. Douglas Van Houne, 
who was aroused from a pleasant doze by the word thirst.) 

The worshipper of Mind had risen, and was standing, 
tall and gaunt, before the table. 

" Mr. Kyle is an enthusiast," he said ; " he speaks in the 
language of poetry. He has portrayed our social condition 
in gorgeous word-painting, not in the cold, bare prose of 
Science. But let him exaggerate as he will our condition 
is sufficiently serious. From our present state of inequali 
ties and ignorance there is but one broad, upward way for 
humanity, a road that leads from the depths of sin and 
superstition to the cool heights of knowledge and demon 
strable facts there is such a road, and that road is Science. 
Without Science we should never have left the Middle 
Ages. Without Science we should still be trembling before 
a god in every breeze, preaching persecution and damnation 
as essential principles. There is but one salvation for man 
kind, and that is " 



THE DESCENDANT I2g 

" Humanity !" shrieked the worshipper of Man, starting 
to his feet. "What has brought us forth from a howling 
wilderness of beasts into civilization and liberty? Human 
ity ! What has restrained us from feeding man upon man, 
and caused us to stretch forth a hand of human fellowship ? 
Humanity! What has promoted sympathy and philan 
thropy, dotting the world with charitable institutions, pro 
tecting the weak against the strong ? What, I say, has done 
this ?" 

" Nothing !" shouted Kyle, suddenly losing his head and 
bringing his hand down upon the table with a powerful 
crash. 

" Science," said the worshipper of Mind, in a hollow tone. 

" Religion," breathed a still, small voice from the back 
ground. 

"Wealth," responded the worshipper of Mammon. 

"I ask: What has done this?" repeated the worshipper 
of Man, " and I answer : Humanity ! I ask the name of the 
noblest power in the universe, and I answer: Humanity! 
I ask what has led us forth from kinship with the lion and 
the tiger, and made us lords of the earth and master of the 
elements, and again I answer : Humanity ! Of all the at 
tributes of Humanity the greatest is Morality. It is the 
fundamental principle underlying progress ' 

" Morality," said the worshipper of Mammon, " is in the 
eye of the beholder." 

The high-priest of Humanity went smoothly on : " Moral 
ity should be the foundation-stone of all government. We 
will eradicate all suggestions of our origin. We will rise, 
like gods, to survey the path of our ascent. Behind us in 
our progress we will leave all save the noblest attributes of 
mankind. From the world we will sweep all wrong-doing, 
all manner of sinfulness, and all things evil " 

" You will leave us nothing to live for," said Driscoll, re 
proachfully. " Impropriety is the spice of life;" 

" Mr. Driscoll," returned the debater, " such levity is in 
decent; it is worse than indecent, it is sacrilegious." 



I3 o THE DESCENDANT 

"But what a bore the world was before the Lord tried 
his hand on the devil !" ventured Driscoll. 

"Sir," said the worshipper of Mind, "worse than inde 
cency is ignorance. Can a man in your position, in this 
the end of the nineteenth century, speak of a person or a 
devil being created 7" 

" No more hyperbole !" exclaimed the worshipper of 
Mammon, smacking his lips, and seeming suddenly to re 
turn from the flesh-pots. "What I've got to say is just 
this : this paper has got to modify principles in proportion 
to its subscription-list ; if the list grows smaller, the views 
have got to go. I've a pretty little sum in this business, 
and I ain't going to have it stuck on a little question of 
opinion" 

" Sir," said the worshipper of Man, " there is principle." 

" Principle," responded the worshipper of Mammon, wav 
ing it to limbo, " is all very well, provided you choose the 
principle that pays." After which he concluded with a 
vigorous sweep. 

" I guess I've got as much to say as anybody else, and 
what I say is this : if there is any row of that sort, I'll sell 
out at a sacrifice and put my capital into the Sunday- School 
Missionary. I've been considering an opportunity for the 
last month." 

There was an awe-struck silence. Mind, personified in 
its representative, shrank to nothingness ; Man withered 
past resistance ; Mammon was supreme. 

" That's all I've got to say," he added, moving towards 
the door, "but I guess it's enough." Then he went out 
and the meeting adjourned. 

Semple laughed, and slapped Akershem upon the shoul 
der. " Your disciples have outstripped their master, eh, 
old man ?" 

" They're a confounded lot," answered Akershem, grimly. 
" It's no easy task to drive a team that pulls in opposite di 
rections. No two of them want the same thing." 

"And not one of them knows what the thing is that he 



THE DESCENDANT 131 

wants. Every man is chasing a shadow, and the worst of 
it is that he doesn't know of what it is the shadow." 

Kyle joined them. 

"I've been telling Mr. Akershem," said Semple to him, 
"that moderation is the leaven we need to balance our 
measures. Nothing must be done in haste, Mr. Kyle." 

" And nothing will be done by laggards," returned Kyle, 
excitedly ; then, leaving them, he made a descent upon a 
seedy individual moving towards the door, and they passed 
out, arm in arm. 

" You'll have trouble with that fellow yet," said Semple ; 
"he's a fanatic, pure and simple." 

"We'll keep him down," returned Michael, laughing, 
but he went off with the warning ringing in his ears. Long 
long afterwards he remembered the words, and sighed 
at the vanity which makes us value such warnings only 
when the evil has overwhelmed us and the prophecy is 
fulfilled. 

As he passed Rachel's door that night, on his way up 
stairs, it opened and she came out. 

"I heard your step," she said, making him a low courtesy, 
" and has Sir Pioneer brought his lady a stone in place of 
a crown ?" 

" He has brought his lady a heart," answered Michael, 
softly, and he caught her hands and held her from him, his 
eyes glowing with the sight of her. The dim light fell 
over her with an illusive brightness, shimmering upon her 
head and in her eyes. With her she brought an impression 
of warmth, as though her gown had caught its hues from the 
flames of the fire she had left. 

Love had strangely glorified her; she was supremely 
beautiful, with the beauty which is a part of love that 
great transforming power which evolves an Esther from a 
Jael, a Madonna from a Magdalen. 

Michael looked at her in breathless ardor. Love quick 
ened her pulses like wine ; it sparkled in her eyes, it quiv 
ered upon her lips, it rippled in the dimples of cheek and 



I 3 2 THE DESCENDANT 

brow ; it wrapped her about, and possessed her with an ex 
uberant vitality. 

So salient it was that it startled him, and, breaking the 
silence, he drew back. " I am not worthy to touch the hem 
of your garment," he said. 

With a swift gesture the girl clasped her hands upon his 
breast, looking into his face. 

" You are the breath of my life," she said. " My hero ! 
My love ! My idol !" For a moment he trembled before 
the abnegation in her eyes. He looked into them and saw 
his own image, dominant, supreme. He held her heart in 
the hollow of his hand, and he knew it. For a moment he 
hesitated, awed by the sublimity of her passion. Then he 
flung his arms about her, gathering her to his breast. " My 
beauty and my beloved !" he said. He kissed her hotly, 
passionately, with a sudden abandonment of self-restraint; 
and Rachel, who would have been stung by the delicate touch 
of another man, flushed into an exquisite ecstasy beneath the 
storm of his kisses. Insensible to all other love, she was as 
wax to the fire of his. 

" I adore you !" he said " I adore you !" 

And perhaps he did. Who knows ? 



CHAPTER II 

MR. DANIEL O'CONNELL KYLE had entered upon life 
handicapped by limited prospects and an illustrious name. 
In his own mind there existed an uncertainty as to which 
had most hampered him the name, which he was not able 
to live up to, or the prospects, which he was not able to live 
beyond. Besides these major disabilities, which might have 
been ascribed to the inscrutableness of a dispensing Prov 
idence, there were minor difficulties which an experienced 
eye might have traced to the agency of a discerning Satan. 
The chastenings of the Lord and the aggravations of the 
devil were so opportune in their concurrence that, to an un 
holy mind, it suggested a secret understanding between the 
parties. It was as if Providence and Satan were in league 
for his undoing. 

Kyle the elder, of whom history makes no mention be 
cause it discounts possibilities, was a man of great promise 
and small fulfilment. The only ability which he ever cul 
tivated was an ability to get into trouble, combined with an 
equal ability to stay, there. A friend, who stood bail for 
him upon a number of appearances in the police court, was 
heard to remark upon the last occasion that if there was a 
clear road ahead of him and a row around the corner, Kyle 
would land in the row, an assertion which that gentleman 
accepted as a tribute to his daring. He was born in Ire 
land, and would probably have died there had Fenianism 
been permitted to flourish upon its native soil. But with 
the suppression of that movement he followed in the foot 
steps of Mitchel and landed in America, a dashing young 
patriot, with melting eyes and a persuasive eloquence of 



I 3 4 THE DESCENDANT 

tongue. Having considered right at home, he preferred to 
consider might abroad, and accordingly offered his services 
for the invasion of the South. After the war he settled in 
New York, and, having still the eyes and the tongue, he took 
unto himself a wife of German parentage a step which re 
sulted from the contact of his own palate with a dish of 
cutlets belonging to the lady of his choice. On the whole, 
the marriage was commonplace. Given two tempers and 
the time, the ordinary marriage produces anarchy, and 
Kyle's was by no means an exception. From bad it be 
came worse, and backsliding followed upon bickering. His 
wife had a way that was painful to others if pleasant to 
herself, and Kyle was driven to solace himself at the only 
hospitable spot in the neighborhood, which chanced to be 
a beer saloon. He grew stout and husky and red of face, 
and, in time, lost all resemblance to the dashing young 
Fenian of '58. But the Old Country dwelt in his heart, and 
he never drank a toast that did not embrace " Ould Ire 
land " and his fellow -rioters. Then when his son came, 
his heart leaped in memory of the silver-tongued O'Connell, 
and he had given the child his name. The little Daniel 
wrought no change in the slovenly household. He remem 
bered a home whose chief factor was unpleasantness, and 
the one bright spot was his father's improvident generosity. 
The young child was fed upon tales of the daring rescue of 
Kelly and the romantic adventures of John Mitchel, and 
he waxed fierce upon the strong meat^of Fenianism. There 
were brain pictures of a lighted saloon and glimpses of 
rough-voiced men hushed into silence while his father stood 
upon a flour-barrel in their midst. The rich Irish brogue 
had thrilled the boy as it thrilled the exiles about him, and 
the sham passion had awakened a real passion in his own 
breast. 

The elder Kyle knew his power, and he made it felt. 
The flour-barrel became a patch of the Emerald Isle, and 
he a patriot declaiming his allegiance. There was fire still 
in the melting glance, and grace in the ranting gestures. 



THE DESCENDANT 135 

"They are slaves who fear to speak 
For the fallen and the weak ; 
They are slaves who would not choose 
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse 
Rather than in silence shrink 
From the truth they needs must think ; 
They are slaves who dare not be 
In the right with two or three !" 

And beneath the melting eyes the boy had chosen to be 
in the right with one, and that one his father. 

So much for Irish eloquence and Irish eyes. 

As he grew to manhood- his father died, leaving him still 
in the right, but alone. The next five years were spent in 
an unprovoked onslaught upon the world, the flesh, and the 
devil. One disadvantage of being in the right is that one 
has not the devil for an ally, an individual who, if an im 
placable foe, is the most influential of friends. 

With a singular disinterestedness, Kyle undertook to re 
adjust the eternal order of things to his personal satisfac 
tion. He was burning with the zeal of wholesome reforma 
tion, and prepared to grant no quarter to the iniquities 
that were, and that, despite such energetic reorganizers, 
forever should be, since iniquity is only less omnipotent 
than Providence. After a season of public abuse his zeal 
diminished for lack of wherewithal upon which to survive. 
Upon a closer inspection he became less ready to sacrifice 
himself for the general good. He decided to forego the 
cup of martyrdom and to leave men to wrangle over their 
petty quarrels among themselves. Poverty, that inexorable 
throttler of ambition, checkmated his individual exertions. 
With the demand of his stomach the appeal of his brain 
was disregarded. For a time he existed, as it were, upon 
the Irish question, but even the Irish question becomes ex 
hausted ; and when he endeavored to supply the demand 
by drawing upon his imagination, it cost him his position. 

Then his energies were expended in the effort to keep 
his head above the quagmire of a submerged humanity. 



136 THE DESCENDANT 

He gravitated to a neighborhood upon the east side, liter 
ally the centre of the level of decency, and by slow stages 
ascended from the first to the twelfth landing. He had 
learned by this time that the public has prepared a sacrificial 
altar upon its own account, and that the inclinations of the 
victim are seldom consulted. 

From his twelfth-story attic Kyle looked down upon the 
human comedy, and his heart withered at the sight. When 
one is compressed into a writhing mass with mankind one 
is apt to lose a good deal of altruism, drop by drop. Ethical 
philosophers are found among those who are well off in 
this world's necessaries, and, consequently, at leisure to ar 
range for the luxuries of the next. A doctrine of endurance 
flows easily from our lips when we are enduring jam and 
our neighbors dry bread, and it is still possible for us to 
become resigned to the afflictions of our brother. 

As an antidote to circumstances Kyle took to opium. 
Borrowed illusions are better than none, and when one has 
not food one might as well have fancies. 

From his father he had inherited the silver tongue and 
eyes like melting suns, and upon Saturday afternoon he 
exerted his eloquence upon the idlers swarming the public 
squares. He became quite a power in a small way, re 
ducing a mob to silence or inciting it to frenzy by the force 
of his speech. It was a ranting oratory, but it did damage 
among the people, and for a time he occupied the post of 
public divinity. 

Then came the great railway strike, and he got mixed 
with it in some unaccountable manner. His utterances, 
the result of too little food and too much opium, drew upon 
him the attention of law and order, personified in the po 
lice, and he was commanded to keep silent in public places. 
They might as well have ordered Niagara to become still 
water ; speech was as necessary to Kyle as rain to a burst 
ing cloud. He continued to speak at the top of his voice, 
and his speech was loud indeed. One evening in Union 
Square, as he stood declaiming to a growing audience, a 



THE DESCENDANT 137 

sudden tremor shook the crowd, and some one beside him 
called out a sharp warning : 

" The cops are arter you !" 

His defiance grew bolder, and he was opening his mouth 
to retort when he felt his arm seized of a sudden and him 
self drawn upon the sidewalk. 

" Are you a fool ?" demanded his captor. He looked up, 
seeing a strong, thick-set man, with an ugly, rough-featured 
face and a mop of coarse dark hair. Kyle shook him off ; 
then something in the man's personality overmastered him. 

" No, I am not," he answered. 

" It's a pity you don't prove it," retorted the other. He 
lifted his hat, running his hand impatiently through his 
hair. His eyes narrowed until they flickered between his 
blinking lids like shafts of yellow light. 

" What is your name ?" he asked. 

Kyle opened his mouth to say " It's none of your busi 
ness," but the man smiled, and he changed his mind and 
said, simply : " Daniel Kyle." 

" Ah ! the same who applied for work at the office of 
The Iconoclast ?" 

"The same." 

" You are out of employment ?" 

"Yes." 

The man looked at him for a moment with nervous in 
tensity. Then he spoke brusquely. "That's all," he said. 
" Go home and keep quiet." 

Kyle had turned away, but his name was called after 
him and he paused. The man was holding out his hand. 

"My name is Akershem," he said; and added, "You 
sha'n't be idle long. I have work for you. I'll look you 
up. Yes, I have your address." And, with an abrupt nod, 
he left him. 

Kyle climbed up to his attic, and, upon the strength of 
the contingency, ate the bread and cheese which he had 
been saving for to-morrow's breakfast. 

" I register a vow," he said, solemnly, " that if ever I 



I 3 8 THE DESCENDANT 

have as much as fifty cents to spend on a single meal I 
won't have a piece of cheese in smelling distance." After 
which he threw himself upon the bed, and decided upon 
the number of dishes he would order had he the ordering 
of a dinner. He had gotten as far as lobster salad when the 
thought of Akershem caused him to square up suddenly. 

" If he keeps his word I'll be delivered from bondage. 
I'll be free ! free !" And he hurrahed in his ecstasy, until 
a little seamstress living across the hall sent in to inform 
him that the baby was down with measles. 

As for Akershem, he was convinced that in discovering 
Kyle he had discovered the link uniting The Iconoclast with 
the working world. A man who was at once a power with 
the people and a disciple of himself he had long looked 
for, and in Kyle's eloquence he believed that he had found 
a telling weapon. For himself, his natural reserve and the 
engrossing nature of his employment put all such personal 
ambition out of the question. 

It was with a certain enthusiasm that he set out some 
days later to look up his promising subject, and, indeed, had 
his enthusiasm been less, the search might well have dis 
sipated it. A fastidious aversion to ill-kept surroundings, 
together with an inherited feeling of kinship to the inhabi 
tants of such surroundings, had served to raise the editor 
of The Iconoclast above the class into which he had been 
born, and his repugnance to these classes was increased by 
the very nearness of the relationship. For the men who 
have least sympathy with ignorance are the men who, by 
their individual efforts, have raised themselves above it, as 
the men who are the most unmerciful to evil-doers are 
those who have lived down evil in themselves. 

The dirt, the squalor, the terrible lack of ventilation, op 
pressed him with the old sense of indecency. It was as 
though a man, inhaling the stale odor of decaying vege 
tables and hearkening to the distracting clamor of guttural 
voices, must become isolated, by mere lack of self-respect, 
from all respectability. 



THE DESCENDANT 139 

Reaching the tenement where Kyle lived, Michael as 
cended to the twelfth landing and knocked at the door 
upon the right. The door chanced to be the wrong one. 
It was opened by the little seamstress, who informed him 
that a gentleman of the name he mentioned lived across 
the hall. " But if he owes you anything, I guess you'd best 
call again," she added. "The poor young gentleman has 
been hard up of late." 

Michael crossed the hall and knocked at the door desig 
nated. " Come in !" called a voice, and he entered. 

At first he was conscious only of lack of space and a 
curious oppression. Then his eyes cleared of the smoke, 
and he saw that the room was bare and squalid, with broken 
window-panes and blackened walls. Upon a small pine 
table in the centre a newspaper was spread, and upon the 
newspaper a knife, a loaf of bread, and a bit of cheese. An 
empty beer -bottle stood upon the chair. A spasmodic 
seizure of emotion caused Michael to turn quickly in search 
of Kyle. Tfre sudden leaping of his pulse was almost pain 
ful in its intensity, and he cleared his throat before speak 
ing. Kyle had risen from the bed upon which he had been 
sitting, and was standing, in his shirt-sleeves, before him, a 
curious mixture of pride and humility upon his face. 

'' I lost no time in looking you up," said Michael. " I 
wanted you immediately." A vague wonder as to what he 
could put him to immediately caused him to repeat, with 
additional emphasis as he glanced about the room, " Im 
mediately." 

"Yes," responded Kyle, with an awkward embarrass 
ment, " yes." His own power of speech had deserted him, 
and all the time he was telling himself that it was the op 
portunity of his life. "Yes," he repeated again. Michael 
laid his hand upon his arm with a gesture that would have 
astonished Driscoll in its cordiality. 

"I like you, Mr. Kyle," he said, "and if you stay in this 
place it sha'n't be my fault; we'll settle about terms later, 
but now " and his mouth relaxed beneath the warmth of 



I 4 o THE DESCENDANT 

his speech. " Come with me," he said ; " I'll put you up 
for a day or two." Even as he spoke he was surprised at 
his own impetuosity, and because he was surprised he clung 
to it with his natural doggedness. " I'll find room for you 
with me," he repeated. 

Kyle put up his hand with a bewildered gesture. " I I 
don't understand," he stammered ; "you may give me work, 
but but I am a beggar. I haven't a cent. I " 

Michael broke in brusquely. " I have been there," he 
said, " and I know all about it. I have eaten a crust that 
a dog would pass by." 

" You you are very generous," said Kyle, gently. " It 
it does not seem like you. I don't know what it means." 

Michael laughed with a sudden boyish mirth. " Pshaw !" 
he exclaimed, "it means that I have been there, my dear 
fellow." Then he looked at his watch. "We'll dine in 
half an hour," he said, " and then to business." 

Kyle put on his coat, took up his hat, and followed him 
into the hall. Upon the threshold of the room he paused 
to look back upon the poverty from which he believed him 
self passing forever. Standing there in his picturesque at 
titude, with his beautiful eyes lingering upon the squalid 
attic, he might have been an artistic spirit breathing an in 
vocation, instead of a material body buoyant with release. 

" Good-bye to dirt and cheese !" he exclaimed, hilarious 
ly. His wild Irish spirits had returned ; it was like return 
ing to life from the grave. With an unrestrained delight he 
slipped his arm within Michael Akershem's. " I am a man 
again," he said. And together they descended the narrow 
stairs and passed out into the street. 



CHAPTER III 

DRISCOLL met Akershem at the corner of Fifteenth Street 
and Broadway. 

" Shem," he began, " is this thing true ?" He looked 
worried, and his whimsical manner seemed half assumed. 

Michael shambled beside him in silence. Then he spoke 
with a slow indifference. 

"What?" he asked. "Has Van Houne drunk himself 
to death, or has Mr. Mushington sold out?" As Driscoll 
looked at him he blushed, the nervous blinking of his lids 
growing faster, and the flame of his glance mellowing like 
the flame of a shaded lamp. "What do you mean ?" he de 
manded, more seriously. 

The other spoke with an awkward hesitancy. " I mean 
this story about you and Miss Gavin. Is it true ? Is 
she" 

" It is a lie !" broke in Michael, hotly. " Whatever it is, 
it is a lie. Only lies are worth repeating." Beneath the 
cool, keen gaze his affected carelessness gave way. 

Driscoll spoke next. 

" Is it true that she she loves you ?" he asked. Even 
as he questioned he smiled a slow, cynical smile at his 
own concern. 

"Yes." 

" Then it is true that she would make a fool of herself 
for you," he said, angrily. " Good God i a woman in love 
is as helpless as a babe unborn. If the man is a scoundrel 
he can make her swear that black is white and believe it." 

Michael winced. 

" The more unselfish a woman is," continued Driscoll, 
ruthlessly, " the easier it is for a man to shoulder his sin 



I 4 2 THE DESCENDANT 

upon her. A noble woman has made many a man a black 
guard." He paused abruptly, and then, with a sudden 
change of tone, went on again, laying one muscular hand 
upon Michael's arm. " Shem, listen to me. Give up this 
infernal nonsense. Call it what you will, your fight against 
conventions is nothing more or less than a fight against 
morality. Men aren't so good that they should be allowed 
full liberty to do evil ; it would be pretty sure to end in 
their doing it. Give it up. If not for your own sake, for 
Rachel Gavin." 

" Don't ! don't !" pleaded Michael, feebly. 

" Marry her if she will marry you, and thank God that 
you weren't a born fool. It isn't every man that has pearls 
cast in the mire at his feet." 

" Driscoll, there is principle." 

"Principle!" His laugh cut like steel. "The only use 
some people make of their principles is to sacrifice other 
people to them." 

"Driscoll!" 

" Oh, call it principle if you choose. It sounds better 
than selfishness and means about the same. As long as it 
pleases you to trample upon the woman who loves you in 
an insane desire to benefit those who spit upon you, go 
ahead. When the romantic side of being spit upon has 
palled upon you, you'll turn and go backwards; but" 
and he set his teeth firmly " a man never learns that he's 
a fool except by experience, and to learn by experience 
means to learn too late !" 

" Stop, Driscoll ! There are some things I'll not take 
even from you. I " 

" You will not take the truth," responded Driscoll. " And 
if you don't, you'll never get it from anybody else." Then 
he left him and boarded a passing car. 

Michael turned and walked homeward. His head was 
bent, and as he passed rapidly along a confused tangle of 
thought seemed to whirl within his brain. Even amidst the 
hurrying crowd, rendered buoyant by the first smack of 



THE DESCENDANT 143 

frost, there we-re some who turned to follow his moving 
figure, arrested by the salient individuality of the man. In 
the very ugliness of his roughly hewn profile there was a 
terrible suggestion of power. 

Remote and far off, across the graded rows of blackened 
chimney-pots, across the fevered, restless city, a gray haze 
was rising, like dew, upon the gorgeous rose-garden of the 
west. Awhile since its colors had dazzled the vision with 
their roseate splendor, paining the senses with the tran 
scendence of human conception. Now the rose was fad 
ing into gray, the flame into ashes ; but one fleeting vestige 
remained of its opulent bloom. 

Michael raised his head and looked westward. He was 
eager and elated. The slight shadow cast upon his self- 
complacency by the meeting with Driscoll had departed ; 
his good-humor reasserted itself, and he smiled slightly as 
he hurried through the streets. 

All else had faded before him, submerged in the thought 
Rachel loved him ! He had been ill-used and desperate, 
but Rachel loved him ! His life had been a battle; he had 
lived and hated as other men had lived and loved ; he had 
toiled while children played ; he had warred while men had 
slept ; he had known despair and degradation, but Rachel 
loved him ! 

Like a star the thought of Rachel seemed moving on be 
fore him, shining above his way, shedding its white light 
down upon the mire where he trod. For the first time in 
his life he revelled in the ecstasy of loving, which is as far 
beyond the ecstasy of being loved as the star is beyond the 
moth. 

All the weight of years fell from him, all memory of that 
stretch of time when his bread had been bitterness and his 
heart the temple of wrath. He forgot the things that had 
been, his revolt from the things that were, and his repining 
over the things that might have been. He knew only that 
a wonderful change had swept over him, something terrible 
and new, which sent the warm blood to his pulses and a 



144 THE DESCENDANT 

sudden scarlet exaltation to his brain. He was lost in 
amazement at the state which men call happiness, and for 
which he had never been in need of a name. 

He stopped and gave money to a beggar upon the side 
walk a wretched creature in a threadbare shawl, who 
ground " Home, Sweet Home," out of a broken music-box. 
He spoke to her kindly, and when she whined "God bless 
you !" he turned and gave to her again. Even the blessing 
of God granting there was a God seemed not unbefitting 
his mental altitude. For his birthright, for his bitterness, 
and for his bloody tears he might extend and receive the 
forgiveness of God. Yes, he would be willing to come to 
terms with God at last. 

He passed on, the discordant tune following him along 
the block. He bought The Herald at the corner. He 
wanted to take the little newsboy by the hand and tell him 
that life was beautiful ; but he felt that the little newsboy 
would not understand, so he took his paper and went upon 
his way. And when the boy ran after him, crying, " Here's 
The Iconoclast, sir," he bought it to recall what he had 
thought and said yesterday about the eternal unfitness of 
the universe. Then he went into the florist's, buying violets 
for Rachel, feeling a thrill as he took the box in his hand, 
knowing that all her sweet life through he, and he alone, 
might lavish them upon her. 

Rachel met him upon the landing. 

As he mounted the stairs he saw her face smiling down 
upon him, and he thought of the evening-star in the after 
glow without. 

She wore a closely fitting gown of filmy black that clung 
about her like a cloud, showing to perfection the ivory 
white of her throat, the dark of her heavy brows. Her 
eyes narrowed as she saw him, with a wistful contraction 
of the pupils implying gravity. 

" Why, Rachel," he said, " have you been crying ?" There 
was an inflection of reproach in his voice which she met 
smilingly, keeping with an effort the nervous corners of 



THE DESCENDANT 145 

her mouth at rest. He took her hand, and together they 
passed into her studio. 

"And now," he said, "we will have the truth and the 
whole truth." His natural peremptoriness of manner as 
serted itself, as it always did when his acquired civility was 
checkmated. There was much truth in Rachel's assertion 
that at heart he was a despot. 
" It is nothing," protested Rachel. 

"The whole truth," repeated Michael. 

He spoke authoritatively, but he stooped and kissed her 
lips as she smiled up at him. With a return of vivacity 
the girl laughed and yielded. 

" It is only a visitor," she said. 

" A visitor," repeated Michael, the word suggesting the 
best parlor in the farmer's cottage, and possibilities of 
severe-minded ladies in sunbonnets. 

" I don't suppose you know Miss Serina Parks ?" She 
tilted her head sideways with a fascinating abandon. 

Michael disclaimed that honor. " Don't do that," he 
said, " or you'll make me kiss you." 

Higher went her eyebrows and farther aside the little 
head. "How can I tell you if you behave so badly?" she 
asked. Perhaps I sha'n't tell you, after all." 

" I do not know Miss Parks." 

She laughed delightfully. " Lucky fellow !" she exclaimed. 
" Never say, Mike, that your cup of misery is complete. 
As long as Providence might have made Miss Serina 
known to you and did not, it has reserved one misfortune 
for the future." 

" But who is she ?" 

" A lady who handles the Ten Commandments with care, 
and collects the fragments that her neighbors have shat 
tered. She is a missionary that is, she confines her at 
tentions exclusively to the unregenerate. She visits eter 
nally. I'm sure if she ever reaches heaven she will be 
continually making return trips to hell.'' Then she seized 
his arms, turning her eyes full upon him. " She only visits 



146 THE DESCENDANT 

the unregenerate," she said, slowly, "and she visited 
me!" 

With a sob she finished, hiding her face against his 
shoulder. Michael clasped her with a passionate tender 
ness, the lamps suddenly alight in his eyes. 

"What do you mean, Rachel ? M}**tlarling, what do you 
mean ?" 

" I didn't understand until she came," said the girl, stiH 
slowly and distinctly. " I didn't know that they said cruel 
things about me. I thought they just let me alone. But 
she carries tuberoses to all sorts of wicked women. She 
never carries them to good women never never ; but she 
brought them to me. She only prays with bad women, but 
she wanted to pray with me." She threw her head back 
with a disdainful gesture. "It is weakness," she said, "I 
oughtn't to care, but I can't help caring a little." 

" Tuberoses !" exclaimed Michael, savagely, as though the 
enormity of the offence consisted in the choice of blos 
soms. " She dared to bring you tuberoses !" Like a yellow 
flame the rage in his eyes leaped forth. " It is a dastardly 
insult !" he cried. Then he looked at Rachel as she 
stood before him, and a wonderful softening passed over 
his face. He took her hand and kissed it. " My lady," 
he said. There was a reverence in his voice that she had 
never heard before a new tone which thrilled her strange 
ly. " Are you afraid ?" he asked. 

And she answered, " I am afraid of nothing with " She 
hesitated. 

" With me," he finished. His eyes warmed, and he fol 
lowed with his touch the line of h/ ( r as it defined her white 
forehead. t x 

" I did not say it," she protestdbf 1 

" But you thought it !" { w it 

" Sir Audacity !" 

Her glance dazzled him. Hefye v out his hand in sudden 
bewilderment. /in 

" How you love me !" he 



THE DESCENDANT 147 

It was that winter that Akershem said he began to live. 
Until then he had struggled for existence in a desultory, 
hand-to-mouth fashion. The meeting with Rachel was the 
genesis of his soul. She weaned him from his melancholia 
so skilfully that he was unconscious that it had been done. 
She infused a share of her own light-heartedness into him. 
She herself was so vitally alert, so buoyant with the essence 
of youth and life, that optimism was infectious. And with 
her optimism was a quality, not a conception. It pervaded 
her whole organism ; through it she looked upon the ex 
ternal world, by its light she read the fulfilment of her own 
aspirations. 

"There is such a change in you, Mike," Rachel had said 
one day ; " you really look like a gentleman." 

" I wish only to look like a man," retorted Michael, in 
sistently; but he wore his hair shorter, nevertheless. He 
was happy, or believed himself to be, which is perhaps as 
near as any of us come to the presence of a mirage. Hap 
piness is a term which we use as we use heaven the evi 
dence of a state neither seen nor felt. 

But so long as we have faith in our fairy tales we are 
none the worse. It is the awakening that shows us the 
fevered eye and quivering pulse, the wages of our ecstatic 
delirium. In fairy tales the dragon is always slain and the 
good triumphant, and love, if we wait long enough, will 
transform the beast. In real life but which is the real 
and which is the fairy tale? 

They were happy in their life together that winter. 
Rachel had put her palette and her brushes by. She did 
not shed tears now. There was a terrible satisfaction in 
being able to bring her ambition and her art bound and 
prostrate before her love. 

She could see Michael standing in Jier studio, his shadow 
falling upon her unfinished picture, and she could smile as 
a woman smiles who has found the man who has mastered 
her. A sad smile, think you? Look upon life and see. 

"And what do I care for a painting, a mere canvas with 



I 4 8 THE DESCENDANT 

daubs of color, when I have you you, the pulse of my 
heart !" She was unwise. Probably. What has love to 
do with wisdom ? 

She was ignorant Certainly. What has passion to do 
with knowledge ? 

All during the winter and spring they had learned to 
know each other. Perhaps some of the first frantic ecstasy 
suffered. We do not waste time in wishing for that which 
we have. Not that we value it less; but when one may 
wish, let it be for something one does not hold in the hol 
low of one's hand. And idealism, that gaudy coloring 
matter of passion, fades when it is brought beneath the 
trenchant white light of knowledge. Ideals, like moun 
tains, are best at a distance. 

But the winter passed quickly enough. Many a merry 
evening they had, dining first at one place, then at another; 
always finding something to laugh over, some recollection 
of their early lives to be recalled. A jolly little Bohemian 
she was, and much of the Bohemian world had she known. 

Sometimes they went to the opera. There was Calve 
that year, and Maurel, and the De Reszkes, and a host of 
others. And, best of all, Melba the adorable, with a voice 
like the rippling of ecstasy over sorrow and a smile like 
the glancing of the dawn. 

He liked to watch her as she listened to music, her little 
head held back, her eyes growing deep and solemn like the 
heart of a storm, her quivering beautiful lips apart. 

He told her of his hard-worked years, showed her the 
streets through which he had walked in his feverish youth, 
and told her of the nights when he had roamed up and 
down, across the bridge and back again, weak from hun 
ger, mad with pain. 

He showed her the square where he had fainted, and told 
her of the woman who had held his head upon her arm. 

"Wherever she is," said Rachel, "may God bless her!" 

And perhaps God did. 

To Michael now those days seemed far far off. He 



THE DESCENDANT 149 

could speak lightly of starvation and despair, as we speak 
lightly of a past pain, remembering, not the pain itself, but 
the association of ideas which it suggests. All the reck 
less ambition of his boyhood, all the weighty heritage of 
shame and ignorance, no longer, represented life to him. 
He was able to look back impersonally upon them, and to 
separate in distinct consciousness the boy of eight years 
back and the man of to-day. He looked upon his youth, 
not as a romancer " reverencing its dreams," but as a mor 
alist condoning its passion. 

His philosophy had undergone modifications. He read 
to Rachel, but he did not read his old masters. Instinc 
tively he felt that she had naught in common with them. 
Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann were put back upon the 
shelf ; the dust gathered and thickened upon Rousseau and 
Proudhon ; Voltaire went the way of all philosophers. And 
Rachel was supreme. He had discovered by this time 
that she was not an angel, but he had found to his satis 
faction that she was something far more interesting a 
witch. 

She bewitched him in the audacity of her brilliant mirth, 
when her eyes were like laughing stars and the dimples 
beside them played at hide-and-seek, and her mouth quiv 
ered with the merriment that would not be shut in. She 
bewitched him in her gravity, when her beauty, which was 
all radiance and expression, had died away, leaving a strained 
and pallid abstraction. Perhaps at such times he loved 
her best, for her fascination was distinctive and apart from 
beauty of form or color. Upon her plainest days it was 
sometimes most vivid, and consisted more in the mobility 
of her personality than in any definite quality. 

In the spring came Michael's breaking down and Rachel's 
nursing lavish, enthusiastic. 

He remembered lying for hours upon the sofa in her 
studio, watching her small flitting figure, as uncertain as a 
gleam of sunshine. The making of the beef-tea was gone 
through so absorbingly that he loved to watch the play of 



150 



THE DESCENDANT 



her long, white fingers, the earnestness with which she 
peered into the jar as it sizzled and boiled in the kettle of 
water. He watched her as she knelt before the fire, the 
long fork held out before the ruddy coals, the light falling 
over her bowed head, her eyes looking up at him from the 
rug, laughing, wistful. 

And then she would spread the napkin upon the waiter, 
strain the beef-tea, and bring it to him, sitting beside him 
until he drained the last drop. In Michael's last severe ill 
ness, when he was shrieking in the madness of fever, his 
voice grew suddenly low and appealing, and he cried : " Is 
this your broth, Rachel ? I want only Rachel's broth !" 
And when one of the hospital nurses said, " This is Rachel's 
broth," he took it from her and drank it down like a child. 
And turning upon his cot he stared out into vacancy with 
his delirious eyes, seeing her standing beside him, her hand 
outstretched, smiling smiling 

But by-gones are by-gones. Time jogs on and we with 
it. Whither? Whither? 



CHAPTER IV 

JOHN DRISCOLL stood upon the steps of his club. In one 
hand he held a cigar, in the other a match, with the blue 
flame slowly flickering out. He had forgotten that his orig 
inal intention was to apply the match to the cigar. 

A military-looking gentleman, running down the steps be 
hind him, paused to slap him on the shoulder. 

" Hello !" he exclaimed. " Is it a matter of public in 
terest ?" 

" I was merely wondering," returned Driscoll, " if I was 
a particular fool, or if it is an attribute of man in general ?" 

"For purely personal reasons, I incline to believe the 
former," remarked the military gentleman as he passed on. 

Driscoll drew a long breath, and shrugged his shoulders 
with his habitual loose-jointed movement. Then he uttered 
a half-suppressed exclamation as he put the match between 
his lips and threw the cigar into the gutter ; after which he 
uttered a more forcible exclamation and threw the match in 
its wake. 

" Damn it !" he said. And a little later, " Still more damn !" 

Then he drew out his cigar-case and fell to smoking sav 
agely. 

"It's no business of mine," he continued, "but I'm such 
an infernal meddler. Why can't I let other people's affairs 
alone ? I'll be holding myself accountable for the devil 
next, and apologizing for him to the Almighty." 

He descended the steps, passing languidly along the side 
walk. 

" Why did I introduce them ?" he said, half aloud. " I 
might have known something would come of it something 
always does come of it. Half the trouble in life comes 



152 THE DESCENDANT 

of introducing two fools. Look at that missionary I intro 
duced to the girl I loved. Look at that typewriter I intro 
duced to my father ; she married the property and the old 
man before my back was turned " 

" Stop a bit !" called some one from behind. He turned, 
and Kyle joined him. 

" You look used up," remarked Kyle, pleasantly. 

" Decidedly so," responded Driscoll. 

" Sorry, but I want that paper you promised me. Begun 
on it yet ?" 

" No." 

"Oh, well, I suppose you'll take your time; you usually 
do, but I wish you'd go ahead. Going in for luncheon? 
So am I." 

They entered the restaurant together and made for a dis 
tant table. 

Kyle beckoned to a waiter, and gave the order with the 
sharp, peremptory manner which so ill accorded with his 
principles. Then he shook back the hair from his eyes and 
began upon the crackers beside his plate. 

" I have it !" exclaimed Driscoll, in an audible aside, 
awakening from an abstracted silence. 

Kyle looked slightly amused. "What's the row?" he 
inquired, persuasively. 

" Oh, I was merely alluding to an ancestor of mine," re 
turned the other, in a whimsical drawl. " I like to trace 
cause and effect, you know. I like ascertaining the exact 
source of a misfortune. I have an intemperate conscience, 
my dear Kyle, and for the past six hours I have sought its 
fountain-head. Now I have it. I only wish I had him," 
he added, savagely. 

"A weak conscience is only second to a weak digestion," 
remarked Kyle, sympathetically. 

" Second !" Driscoll bent his heavy brows upon him. 
" I assure you, an indiscretion sits heavier upon my con 
science than a a plum -pudding upon my digestion. If 
that's not a malady, I don't know one !" 



THE DESCENDANT 153 

Kyle laughed with the quick twitching of the nostrils 
which accompanied it. "A case of your grandfather hav 
ing the fun and you the gout, I suppose," he suggested. 

Driscoll crumbled his bread between his fingers in a mo 
ment's abstraction; then he smiled. "I had a grandfather 
who was a Puritan," he said, " which means that he was a 
sinner with a conscience. The only recorded fact concern 
ing him states that he stole a feather-bed; it also states 
that upon his death he made restitution of the feather-bed 
to its rightful owners. Don't start, my dear Kyle ; it is not 
his method of acquiring the feather-bed that I object to 
I waive that in respect for the end in view. Personally I 
consider feather-beds highly desirable possessions, and had 
his conscience been in a healthy condition he would have 
bequeathed it to his lineal descendants. But the feather 
bed is a mere instance. It is the conscience I object to, 
and the conscience I have inherited." 

" Conscience," said Kyle, dogmatically, " represents a 
fetich to which good people sacrifice their own happiness, 
bad people their neighbors'." 

" Quite right ; but unfortunately so few of us are able to 
grasp that convincing truth. If there is a law in this uni 
verse more durable than the Persistence of Force, it is the 
law of the Persistence of Error. Witness the number of 
us that are unable to throw off the effects of early train 
ing. Why, if there is one document that is firmly embed 
ded in my mind it is the Shorter Catechism. It is a moral 
alphabet, and its maxims come to my finger-tips as easily 
as A B C. I acquired it with twelve painful years ; and 
philosophers may come and philosophers may go, but the 
Shorter Catechism abides forever. Somehow I can't get 
over the conviction that when I follow the Catechism I 
am right, when I go contrary to it I am wrong." 

He smiled upon Kyle, and Kyle cast upon him, from be 
neath his lowered lids, a quick, scrutinizing glance, as if in 
doubt of the sincerity of his words. One was forced to 
take Driscoll's earnestness, if he was ever in earnest, upon 



154 THE DESCENDANT 

trust. " It is a lack of independence, I know," continued 
Driscoll. " Nine - tenths of the virtuous people are good 
from sheer inability to be bad. A fool may follow in the 
straight and narrow path, but it takes a clever man to 
leave new tracks in the broad one." 

Kyle tapped his coffee-cup with the forefinger of his 
right hand. 

"Ah!" he said, softly, with a sudden relish of his lunch 
eon. Then he rose, and they passed out into the street. 

At the corner they separated, Kyle going to his work, 
Driscoll to his idleness. 

He had gone but a short way when his gait lost sudden 
ly its languid listlessness, and a quick interest awoke in his 
face. Along the block before him moved swiftly a straight, 
slim figure. For a moment Driscoll started in pursuit. 
Then his pace slackened and he fell back, his eyes follow 
ing the figure with a pained wistfulness until it disappeared 
around a distant corner. 

Then he shook himself and laughed. 

"A woman," he remarked, irrelevantly, "is a fool until 
she falls in love, and then she's a damn fool." With which 
philosophic utterance he went upon his way. 

After the opera that night Driscoll went with Mrs. Van 
Dam and several of Mrs. Van Dam's acquaintances to the 
Waldorf for supper. Mrs. Van Dam might be described as 
the logical product of an exact equilibrium. Her earthly 
possessions were so nicely adjusted upon the scales of fate 
that the weight of a feather upon either side would have 
disturbed the balance and she would have been found 
wanting. Her virtue, as an instance, was less the result of 
a positive tendency in that direction than a negative ca 
pacity for the opposite course. Being beautiful, she might 
have been a Lais; being plain, she became a Lucretia. She 
possessed worldly wisdom to a degree that enabled her to 
appreciate the fact that to shine in infamy requires certain 
extraneous qualities which may be dispensed with in a less 
ambitious career. To be successfully vicious necessitates 



THE DESCENDANT 155 

charm of manner ; but a severe exterior is not unbefitting 
a virtuous soul. Having grasped this essential verity, Mrs. 
Van Dam relapsed into an inflexible respectability ; and, 
attaining that state, meted out impartial judgment upon the 
offenders whose less nicely adjusted balances have decided 
them upon an adverse direction. 

Such is the power of accident in our choice of attitudes. 

Physically she was a small woman, with a figure suggest 
ing that the Lord, in his search for material, had overlooked 
the possibilities of the backbone in favor of the rib. Her 
features were considered saintly by those who had only 
seen saints upon canvas and associated the term with im 
mobility. Mr. Van Dam sat across from her. He was fat 
and well fed, possessing, indeed, all the attributes of a hap 
py mortal. The fact that he was not so was due to cir 
cumstances, not to composition. 

A gentleman upon Mrs. Van Dam's right was looking 
down upon his Newburg with sentimental fondness. " If I 
eat lobster, and if I don't eat lobster, I shall regret it," he 
remarked, plaintively. 

" A sin of commission or omission," suggested Mr. Van 
Dam, with a sudden interest in the decision. 

"If it lies between doing a thing and refraining from 
doing it, I always do it," announced a gentleman with a 
large mouth and an enormous nose. "To act means to 
live." 

" Except when it means to die," amended the sentimental 
gentleman, resignedly, as he took up his fork. 

Suddenly the gentleman with the enormous nose was 
heard from. " There's Akershem with a lady," he said. 
" I didn't know he affected the advancing sex." 

"Ah, he has retrograded, you see," commented a young 
lady beside him. Then she looked at Mrs. Van Dam. 
"Why, it is your young cousin," she said; "where has she 
been hiding such an age ?" 

Mrs. Van Dam looked at her with eyes that saw not. So 
stony was her stare that it seemed to penetrate the walls 



156 THE DESCENDANT 

and to traverse Fifth Avenue. Her voice was ominously 
distinct. "I have no young cousin," she said. Rachel 
Gavin, sitting within reach of her, heard the words, and a 
sudden wave of color mounted to her white forehead. In 
stinctively she shrank away, drawing nearer to Michael 
Akershem. In her eyes there was the look of a fawn that 
a huntsman has driven to bay. 

From beneath his lowered lids Driscoll looked at her, 
seeing the hunted glance, seeing the wave of scarlet sweep 
across her brow, seeing also that the look Michael bent 
upon her was a look of adoration but not of comprehension. 
His sensibilities, blunted as they had been, failed to rec 
ognize the dart that wounded her sensitive nature. This 
Driscoll understood, and, like one who suddenly awakes to 
his surroundings, he spoke, fixing his keen glance upon his 
hostess. "Why, there is Miss Gavin," he said. "If you 
will pardon me, I'll ask her about her picture." He crossed 
over and took Rachel's hand, meeting her proud glance of 
gratitude with an amused indifference. Akershem's manner 
of conscious possession irritated him, and his nonchalance 
was heavier than usual, as he stood beside them waiting 
for the tremor to leave Rachel's lips. 

" So you have been to the opera," he said, lightly. 
"That's good; there is only one thing better than the 
sound of music, and that is no sound at all." 

" Oh, dear," sighed Rachel. " It was beautiful so beau 
tiful !" The light leaped to her eyes that rich, luminous 
light that shed its kindly beams in an indiscriminate cor 
diality. Michael watched her silently, his face warming 
with delight in her, until his irregular features grew soft 
and harmonious. 

"Well, yes," conceded Driscoll, coolly, "Mrs. Van Dam 
really said some witty things." 

Rachel frowned spitefully. " She might have said them 
as well at home," she said. 

" By no means : the singers invoke a spirit of emulation. 
I assure you, whenever I go to the opera I take my note- 



THE DESCENDANT 157 

book along prepared to jot down clever speeches. There 
must be something inspiring in the music of Faust , for the 
garden scene never fails to sharpen the wits of my friends." 
Then he grew serious. " We missed you at the oil exhibit," 
he said. " No work of yours was hung." 

The girl looked at him wistfully, her eyes narrowing, the 
smile leaving her lips. " Oh, I was never much of a painter, 
you know," she said, and her voice was almost appealing. 
" It was a case of mistaken vocation." 

His eyes were merciless in their keenness. " So you have 
joined our grand army of the unsuccessful," he added. 

The bitterness of tone caused her to cast a startled look 
upon him. " You you regret it ?" she faltered. " You re 
gret my work ?" 

" I regret a wasted talent," he answered, harshly. 

She did not reply, and he left them and went back to 
Mrs. Van Dam, who received him disapprovingly, and to 
Mr. Van Dam, who asked, in a drowsy tone, "who his 
charming friend was ?" And Rachel finished her supper, 
and went home with the flush still lingering upon her face. 

" Are you sure you are happy ?" she asked " quite, quite 
happy, dearest ?" 

And he answered by a glance. 

Then she lifted her resolute eyes to his, and said in her 
heart : " It is worth it worth it ten thousand times !" But 
she did not forget Driscoll and the bitterness of his lament 
over her buried talent. Despite her indomitable pride she 
acknowledged a vague gratitude ; and when, some evenings 
later, Michael brought, him up to dinner, she received him 
with an affectionate cordiality. " I told him we were to 
dine in your studio," Michael explained, " and I wanted 
him to get a glimpse of you at home." 

" It was just right," assented Rachel, and she smiled 
brightly upon him. At the moment she was stirring may 
onnaise in a tiny china bowl, and she gave him the hand 
that held the spoon. The black sleeve was rolled back 
from her elbow, and there was an appealing innocence 



158 THE DESCENDANT 

about the curves of her slim white arm. To Driscoll she 
seemed a naughty child that had strayed beyond the camp 
of the Philistines. He wondered if it wasn't all play, her 
art and her ambition and her love and the whole sunny 
stretch of her short life. Was the tie that bound her to 
Michael Akershem more durable than the passing fancy of 
a young human thing for companionship ? Was it not the 
mistake of a soul in the old, old search for happiness ? She 
was but a child as yet, and children must have playthings ; 
but when the child puts aside childish things, would she 
put aside her love along with them ? 

But she was healthy and warm with her red young blood, 
and the call of a warm young thing for happiness is not to 
be hushed by the chill of the philosopher's stone. It is 
only when we have called and called until our throats are 
dry and happiness has not come that we take up philoso 
phy. We leave the sermons of life to the dust upon the 
shelves until the sweet mad poetry has drained our pas 
sions dry; then we turn back for the sermons, which are as 
dry as ourselves. But youth, tragic youth, has first to be 
cheated. 

Driscoll glanced about him with a careful scrutiny. He 
took in the details of the room, the charming feminine 
touches that lent it its originality. It was a room which re 
flected Rachel at every turn. The table had been spread 
by the girl herself, and when she had finished the mayon 
naise, turned down her sleeves, and seated herself behind 
the bowl of flame-colored nasturtiums, Driscoll acknowl 
edged to himself that it was good. Good ! Far, far too 
good too good for Michael Akershem and for himself. 

Across the flame-colored nasturtiums her deep eyes shone 
upon him, her scarlet lips broke into sensitive curves as she 
talked, her whole radiant personality fell over him as the 
falling of a spell. Was she in earnest, or was it all play ? 

"Who is going to smoke?" asked Michael, when the din 
ner things had been removed, and they still lingered about 
the table. 



THE DESCENDANT 



159 



Rachel paused, with the sugar-tongs held in her hands, a 
lump of sugar in the sugar-tongs. 

" You aren't," she responded. " You've had your share of 
cigars to-day." Then she turned her eyes upon Driscoll. 
" You may, Mr. Driscoll," she said. 

" Am I one of the blessed ?" he asked. " But what about 
Shem ?" 

" Shem knows he can't have any," she answered, sweetly. 

"Just one," pleaded Michael. 

" Not one," and she passed him his coffee. 

He demurred, but yielded. "You are severe," he pro 
tested. 

"That has nothing whatever to do with it," returned she. 
And she smiled so delightfully that Michael swore he didn't 
want a single one, and Driscoll threw his into the grate. 
Then they drew their chairs about the fire and talked until 
the hours went on, and Driscoll left, taking Michael along 
with him. 

In the street he turned and looked at Akershem with a 
sudden inscrutable earnestness. 

" Upon my soul, Shem," he said, " I never envied a liv 
ing man until to-night." And then he added, under his 
breath, " No, I don't envy you, because you will never un 
derstand." 



CHAPTER V 

THE next year left an indelible impression upon Michael 
Akershem. It showed the immense factor which happiness 
or unhappiness may be in the making of man. It was as if 
the check arresting his development had been suddenly 
withdrawn, and his nature as suddenly veered into a dis 
covered channel. Not that Michael was satisfied far from 
it ; but his dissatisfaction had taken a new and startling 
direction. The bitter lines about his mouth faded into 
a general expression of uncertainty ; his speech was less 
cynical, more honest. He was fast acquiring the air of 
a man who sees in the world the oyster ready for his 
opening. 

Perhaps, of all men, John Driscoll was the first to notice 
the change. The desperate, revolutionary spirit from which 
he had feared so much he now watched with growing com 
placency, seeing in it a flame which, sooner or later, must 
burn itself out. One may play with opinions as long as 
there is no danger of one's cutting one's self. 

Michael was beginning to realize that life might turn out 
to be a pretty good thing too good to be squandered in 
altruism, so called. And as long as life seems good to us 
we are content to leave in the hands of Providence the 
slaying of public dragons. It is not of happy men that 
martyrs are made, and Akershem was beginning to play the 
reformer after Driscoll's heart, the wise one who leaves his 
schemes as well as his stones to be tested by others. But 
despite the awakened regard for personal attainment, there 
was a feature of Michael's evolution from revolutionist to 
reformer which Driscoll puzzled over. It was the height 
ened variability of his moods, as if, by cheating himself into 



THE DESCENDANT 161 

a conviction, he were trying to escape the resultant twinges 
of conscience. 

Egoism had been the cardinal element of Michael's nat 
ure this Driscoll knew an egoism which was all but un 
conscious of itself, and which was concentrated into an ab 
normal desire for self-satisfaction. That self-satisfaction 
to be complete must contain self-esteem, Driscoll also knew, 
and the varying gloom and shade of Akershem's demeanor 
made him wonder if the reformer held the mere agitator as 
worthy of respect as he had held the revolutionist. 

And that Michael now wrote beyond his convictions was 
evident. But little force had gone from The Iconoclast. The 
leaders were as brilliantly invective as of old, but in the 
man himself fanaticism seemed exhausting itself in waver 
ing outbursts. It was the stock in trade doled out from 
the editor's chair, and once out of office he seemed to have 
left the mantle of his Iconoclasm behind him. Upon Kyle, 
his idolater and disciple, perhaps his mantle was destined 
to fall. But Kyle hardly seemed to favor the possible trans 
ference. He had a slavish, almost superstitious reverence 
for Akershem, the man whose mental force had dominated 
his own weaker intellect until it seemed that he had re 
ceived the other's passion untempered by the other's judg 
ment. 

Of the two men, Kyle was, unquestionably, the- more un 
selfish, the more fanatical, the readier to offer soul and brain 
to the party juggernaut. Akershem was the saner. 

And now Michael was slackening all but imperceptibly 
in his zeal. His mind was divided, and a mind divided 
against itself is without foundations. His abstraction was 
the result of an unsuccessful attempt to cheat himself into 
overlooking his own insufficiency, and with a mind whose 
reason and desire were concomitant this was no difficult 
matter. " I will be what I will be " might have been para 
phrased for him into " I am what I will to be." It was 
not that he refused to confront his soul, but that in con 
fronting it he cast over it the glamour of personality, looking 



162 THE DESCENDANT 

down upon himself through himself. Life had taught him 
that reason may be bound and fettered by desire, and yet 
hold itself supreme in right of a beggary of names. 

"There's a change in you," said Semple to Michael one 
day, "and I like it; you're better company." Michael 
laughed. His laugh had always seemed singularly lacking 
in a humorous quality, and there was no change in that. 

" I have taken your advice," he answered, " and I feel 
that we must move slowly. Desperate attempts end in des 
perate failures." 

" Quite right ! quite right ! There is nothing like mod 
eration." 

" Nothing when one upsets the world for a pastime." 

There was a twinkle in Semple's short-sighted eyes. 
"You needn't sneer," he said; "when a man gets to mid 
dle age he wants a warrant against boredom. Every man 
tries to find one science, philosophy, dissipation, what you 
will. Now, to a man who wants action and has no especial 
taste for impropriety, reform is the thing." 

" Glad you're suited. It seems to me a useless sort of 
thing, though a frenzy may be vastly diverting, one can't 
work one's self into it over nothing. A man wants to see 
the fruits of his endeavor." 

" That's a weakness of youth, my dear Akershem. When 
a man has passed into his fifties he'd much rather not see 
the fruits of his endeavor. He wants to be always looking 
ahead to them. No man wants to reach the top of the hill ; 
when he does he may as well sit down and wait to die. 
Pessimism is the affectation of youth, the reality of age." 

"And your immense influence has for its support " 

" Diversion ! A sure one, I warrant you. This is between 
ourselves, of course. I don't placard my motives, but " 
Then he changed his tone. "You'll dine with us on Thurs 
day, won't you? Quite informally. My wife wishes to 
know you, and if you don't wish to know her now you will 
after Thursday. You'll come? All right." And they 
parted. 



THE DESCENDANT 163 

Michael went home, changed his clothes, and went in to 
see Rachel. 

" Semple got hold of me," he said, " and made me prom 
ise to dine there." 

" Oh, well," said Rachel, "but I don't like Semple." 

"Why?" 

"I don't know. I think it's because he's he's insin 
cere." 

"Insincere! How?" 

" Oh, how can I tell ? But I know he is j I feel it. He 
rubs his hands so, and he's he's fishy." 

Which was somewhat unjust ; but justice was hardly one 
of Rachel's strong points. 

Concerning Semple, Michael found that his own toler 
ance had strengthened. He even began to entertain a rev 
erence for so well balanced a judgment, and his contempt 
for what he had called " Semple's artifice " was rapidly wan 
ing in admiration for his sagacity. On the whole, he was 
glad he had accepted Semple's invitation, and when Thurs 
day came it was with no small interest that he went to keep 
his engagement. 

A cheery blaze of light greeted him in the hall a ruddy 
light of open fires and shaded lamps. At his entrance there 
was a scampering of children's feet and a voice heard, 
saying : 

"No, no, Johnny, positively you can't look at him; he 
isn't a show. Go to bed." 

Then in a moment Mrs. Semple descended with out 
stretched hand and cordial voice, several children clinging 
to her skirts, and a general air of motherliness about her. 
Michael felt a delightful ease at the first sound of her voice ; 
she seemed the embodiment of home and comfort. "I 
couldn't get the children to bed," she said, cheerily, "until 
they had had a peep at you just one peep, and then they 
go to nurse." There was something beautiful in the way 
her large white hands passed over the tiny heads and the 
patience with which she submitted to the ruthless clutching 



164 THE DESCENDANT 

at her light skirts. " Say good-night," she said, " and run 
away." And after Michael had shaken hands with a boy 
or so, and kissed several of whose sex he was uncertain, 
they were borne off by a nurse in a voluminous apron. 

Mrs. Semple was a large woman with a somewhat shape 
less figure and a pleasant face. Her face was so pleasant 
that one forgot to notice that her features were irregular 
and her chin too full. One might have called her a noble- 
looking woman without stopping to explain what the term 
signified. The geniality of her expression, the tactful 
charm of her manner, caused her size and the awkwardness 
of her movements to dwindle into veriest insignificance. 

She talked to him of his work, of the success of his jour 
nalism, of a lecture she had heard him deliver, and of her 
husband's enthusiastic interest in his future, until, by-and- 
by, Semple himself came in and Michael saw the agitator 
at home. The deference and honor with which he treated 
his wife were at once evident. There was no turn in the 
conversation that he did not appeal to her judgment ; when 
she spoke he listened gravely, if he differed he entered into 
a full argument. Never by the slightest sign did he ignore 
the value of her opinion or bring the question of her sex 
before them. She spoke as coolly and independently as if 
she were a man and he her associate in business affairs. It 
was a strange and surprising experience to Michael, who 
knew the vacillating restlessness of Semple's nature, and 
who had seen wives of a year or two ignored or treated as 
dolls in dolls' houses. Here was a woman, neither young 
nor beautiful, who had been married twenty years, who was 
the mother of a large family, and who held the undeviating 
esteem of a man as changeable as Hedley Semple. How 
was it? 

" You should hear my wife on the platform," said Semple, 
suddenly. "You're a new woman, aren't you, Carolina?" 

" A pretty old one," she answered, cheerily. " My oldest 
boy will be seventeen in March." 

" She's abreast with me," he explained, " in my work, and 



THE DESCENDANT 165 

sometimes she gets ahead. She works for the emancipa 
tion of women, and it is as much as your sanity is worth to 
get into a controversy with her on the subject. She can 
show you more logic in an hour than you ever imagined the 
woman's suffragists possessed. I " 

But the other guests arrived, and Michael found that the 
dinner was hardly so informal as he had been led to ex 
pect. There were several ladies ; all wore rustling silks, 
and one of them was very beautiful. She was introduced 
as Miss Rankin, and he heard Mrs. Semple call her " Ger 
trude." She was tall and of superb physique, with a brill 
iant color, and coal-black hair worn smoothly braided upon 
the crown of her head. He learned that she had just left 
Vassar, that she was a Theosophist, and was upon her way 
to Madame Somebody of somewhere, who was to instruct 
her in the art of spiritualism. She carried herself languid 
ly and spoke as from an elevation, seeming to have an eye 
for things spiritual and looking like a magnificent specimen 
of things temporal. 

Then there was Miss Patskey, who was of uncertain 
years, tall and thin, with a gray front that had not always 
been in her possession. She was a woman of extraordinary 
attainments, having an aptitude for scientific pursuits, and 
was just completing a work upon "The Habits of Centi 
pedes," which she alluded to frequently, remarking that our 
ignorance of the habits of those domestic insects was de 
pressing. At every allusion Miss Rankin was seen to put 
her spoon aside, shift her spiritual vision, and shudder. 

Next came Miss Allard, who taught mathematics in a 
public school. She was fresh and plain looking when over 
shadowed by Miss Rankin's superb proportions, but Michael 
liked the strength of her honest face crowned by the halo 
of rich red hair. Her skin was of the transparent order 
that is rarely seen unaccompanied by red hair, but her eyes, 
instead of being blue, were hazel. Once he met her full, 
level glance, and found her eyes limpid with an emotion 
less tranquillity. 



166 THE DESCENDANT 

Miss Rankin was taken in to dinner by an English Mem 
ber of Parliament, who displayed a lively interest in the 
habits of the centipedes as well as the habits of Americans, 
but who dressed with a meritorious disregard of the latter. 
He was making a tour of the United States in the interest 
of a theory he hoped to formulate concerning republican 
governments whether for or against, Michael did not dis 
cover. The M.P. had been in America exactly three weeks, 
during which space he had received enough impressions to 
supply the demands of the most prominent periodicals, to 
which he was contributing lengthy articles upon " America 
and Americans," "Characteristics of American Women," 
and " American Types." About the last paper he seemed 
somewhat confused, and Michael heard him apply to Sem- 
ple for data. 

" My dear sir," interrupted Kyle, who was of the party, 
leaning across the table, and speaking in a high-pitched, 
dictatorial voice, " there's no such thing as an American 
type or a typical American. It's all nonsense. But, of 
course, if you ram it down our throats we will believe you. 
It's a weakness of Americans to read the folderol foreign 
ers are always writing about them." 

The M.P. put up his eye-glass and eyed the speaker 
curiously. But for his inherent good -breeding he should 
have liked to have taken this specimen down in a series of 
notes. 

" Give us time," began a mild- voiced young man from the 
other end of the table. His name was Self, and he was a 
Methodist clergyman, having strayed into satanic meshes 
through his admiration for Miss Allard. " We are making 
a nation," he declared " a great nation." 

Mr. Self was a gentleman of a great many ideals and a 
very few ideas. His ideals were his own, stamped with the 
pattern of their creator ; his ideas were borrowed notably 
from Thomas a Kempis and Mr. Jeremy Taylor. His 
ideals he used as whips, whereby he lashed his congrega 
tion into the narrow path ; his ideas he reserved as a con- 



THE DESCENDANT 167 

science -balm, when he was inclined on his own part to 
traverse the broad one. 

" We are making a great nation," he repeated, with amia 
ble emphasis. 

Miss Patskey fixed her eyes upon him, whereupon he 
was suppressed. 

"Take a composite photograph of the nations of the 
earth," asserted she, " and you have a typical American." 

But the Englishman was speaking to Michael. " I hear 
that you are from Virginia, Mr. Akershem," he said, " and 
I feel a peculiar interest in Virginia. I intend spending 
some weeks there upon my return from the West, in order 
to have an opportunity of studying the negro character. 
Can you suggest the part of the country most suitable to 
my intention ?" 

Michael felt that he was verging upon unsafe ground, 
but he ent%ed into a discussion respecting the relative ad 
vantages ofVr,e various sections. He was somewhat re 
lieved when Mrs. Semple called the Englishman's attention 
to the general conversation. 

"We are discussing," she said, in her pleasant voice, 
"the greatest need of the American people. Mr. Kyle 
thinks independence spiced with action ; Miss Patskey the 
emancipation of women ; and Mr. Self is divided between 
prohibition and religion." 

" Spiritualism," announced Miss Rankin, bringing her 
glorious eyes to bear upon the M.P., and speaking as if she 
were issuing oracles from Mount Olympus " spiritualism is 
the need of our people. We are singularly lacking in 
ethereal qualities. The presence of a Madame Blavatsky 
among us would work miracles. We need to look upward 
to higher things ; we are exhausting ourselves in the de 
basing pursuit of wealth." 

" I agree with you, Miss Rankin," cried Mr. Self, in mild 
excitement. Miss Rankin bowed her priestess-like head in 
acknowledgment of his intelligence. 

"We need patriotism," said Michael; "our patriotism 



168 THE DESCENDANT 

was exhausted in the Revolution. Our constitution to-day 
is no better than a stagnant organism, supporting a para 
sitic growth of politicians." 

" But this this praiseworthy, shall I call it ? desire to 
know what is thought of your institutions by travellers, is 
this not patriotism ?" The Englishman leaned forward, in 
tent upon sifting the matter to an explanation. 

" Oh, I think our patriotism is all right," said Semple, re 
assuringly. "Let a foreign power assail our dignity, and 
see what will come of it. But as long as we can't have 
war, why not let us have wealth ?" 

" Oh, it is the love of wealth that is wrecking our national 
character," argued Mr. Self. " I agree with Miss Rankin : 
we have too much sordid realism. We need idealism. We 
nee'd to turn to the frugal existence of our Puritan ances 
tors, putting aside all the vicious results of these decadent 
days. We need to do away with the liquor traffic and 
woman's suffrage." 

Miss Rankin started, a slow flush mantling her beautiful 
face. " I did not mean that," she retorted, haughtily. 

" In woman's suffrage," said Miss Patskey, repeating a 
lesson by rote, " behold the salvation of our people." 

"And in the liquor traffic the consolation of man," added 
Semple. " So you're overruled, Mr. Self." 

" But, after all," concluded Mrs. Semple, " it remains for 
me to solve the riddle, and to suggest that our greatest need 
is the need of manners." 

The M.P. was struck with the discrimination shown in 
the remark. " Now, I'd really thought of that myself, you 
know." He emphasized and proceeded to make a mental 
memorandum of the coincidence. 

Michael, looking up, met Miss Allard's eyes across the 
table, and again he noticed how clear they were. Then he 
looked at Miss Rankin and back again, and thought how 
plain and commonplace Miss Allard was. 

When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room the 
Englishman pleaded an engagement and left, impressed 



THE DESCENDANT 169 

with the fact that well -served dinners are a pleasant 
feature of American customs. Miss Rankin gathered her 
diaphanous drapery around her, bowed her stately head, and 
was driven away, chaperoned by Miss Patskey, who had 
tied her head up in a gray woollen muffler. 

Then several small figures in white nightgowns came 
bounding into the drawing-room. 

" I heard Anna," piped a chorus of trebles. " And I 
smelled cake, an' I want both." 

And Anna, who was Miss Allard, marshalled them off to 
bed. 

"The children adore Anna," said Mrs. Semple, "and so 
do I. She is so wholesome." 

Michael, walking home through the night, found himself 
haunted by Mrs. Semple's serene graciousness. A charm 
ing woman she was, he told himself, and he seemed to see 
her large, bounteous figure, enhanced by the cheerful setting- 
off of her fireside a rare womanly presence, in whom the 
restless heart of her husband had trusted for twenty years. 
What was it that to a man so impatient of restraint as 
Hedley Semple had made his marriage bonds not irksome, 
but a veritable assistance ? Michael questioned, and, so ques 
tioning, gave it up. 



CHAPTER VI 

ONE evening during the following week, Michael, pass 
ing Semple's after dusk, saw Miss Allard descend the steps 
and pass along the sidewalk before him. 

With a mechanical inertness his eyes followed the swift 
onward tendency of her movements, lingering upon every 
flexible line of her figure as it flitted through the pellucid 
light effect. The electric light seemed invested with a 
curious fluidity. It was as if it shimmered in visible waves 
upon the sustaining atmosphere. 

There was a buoyant energy about the girl's figure, a 
lightness as if she had walked upon springy turf with a 
pristine disregard of the weight of gravity. 

Michael contracted his gaze to more intent observation. 
He understood what Mrs. Semple had meant when she 
said "Anna is so wholesome." There was not a possibility 
of the morbid depression of the times in any line of the 
girl's form. She was all health and action, a reincarnation 
of a woodland Diana, passing at nightfall through the New 
York streets. It was not that she was beautiful, for she 
was not; it was only that she was healthy, untainted by the 
degeneration of the day, as untainted as if she had lived 
upon sylvan meads and fed upon the milk and butter of a 
mountain dairy. An appropriate milkmaid she might have 
made for all the clear-cut purity of her profile, carrying her 
bucket with the firm, swinging movement of her unfettered 
arms, carolling in the rarefied atmosphere of the pastures. 
Suddenly she turned the corner, and Michael overtook her 
with several long strides. " You are late," he said. " May 
I not see you safely home?" 

Miss Allard turned upon him with her fresh, wholesome 



THE DESCENDANT 171 

smile. He could but notice the serenity of her quiet face, 
brightened by the glory of her hair. 

"I hardly think my safety depends upon it," she ob 
served, with her cheery laugh that seemed sylvan in its 
heartiness; "but as you choose." She had drawn herself 
to her full height with an unconscious dignity of carriage. 
He thought, with a touch of offended vanity, that she 
seemed not wholly pleased with the meeting but perhaps 
it was his fancy, after all. 

" I am late," she admitted, after considering the sugges 
tion. " Nannie will worry." 

"Nannie?" 

" My niece," she explained. " I have had her since she 
was a tiny child. We lived in the country until her parents 
died." 

"Oh!" The chastened rusticity of her personality was 
explained. Perhaps she had been fed upon milk and eggs, 
and that trick of walking evidently the meadows had 
been springy. 

" You lived out-of-doors," he said, unconsciously speak 
ing his impression aloud. 

" Out-of-doors ?" Her eyes questioned his sanity. 

" I I beg your pardon, but I was seeking to explain 
your difference from the women of to-day. Mrs. Semple 
says that you are wholesome the result of country air, I 
suppose. 

" Perhaps." There was a rising breeze in her laugh, sug 
gesting buttercups and pastures green. " All wild things 
are wholesome, are they not ? I grew wild." 

He bent his ruthless gaze upon her. "You are like a 
tonic," he said, simply. Then he added, " And what a pity 
it is! you will not escape the contagion you will catch 
one of the 'isms' floating around and go mad, like the rest 
of us." 

" Are you mad ?" 

" It is deadly. The degeneration has attacked us. It 
is they?;/ de siecle disease." 



172 THE DESCENDANT 

" It is transient. From the fever we shall but gain stam 
ina for fresh exertions." 

" Ah, it hasn't attacked you yet." 

"I am not sufficiently civilized. The disease is not 
strong enough to contend with rusticity." With all the 
soft outlines of her lips there was no lack of decision, for 
all at once the lines of determination were written upon 
her face. She looked up at him thoughtfully. " I did not 
know," she said, " until a moment ago that you were the 
Mr. Akershem of The Iconoclast" 

"Yes." Michael's vanity responded to the appeal, but 
he started slightly at her next remark. 

" I am so sorry," she said. 

" Sorry ! Why ?" 

The words seemed to have slipped from her almost uncon 
sciously; for as he repeated them the color in her cheeks 
deepened. But, having committed herself, she did not flinch. 

" Sorry that you have thrown yourself away." 

Rudeness was hardly compatible with the simple earnest 
ness of her voice, rising perceptibly in its flute-like notes ; 
if not rudeness, then ignorance. But he turned to look at 
her, and the supposition fled. He fixed his magnetic re 
gard upon her. For the first time in his life he was brought 
face to face with the inflexible convictions of an incorrupti 
ble character. An almost primitive adherence to principle 
was the dominant element of Miss Allard's nature. 

"Thrown myself away?" repeated Michael. "Why, I 
have accomplished more than any man of my age that I 
know." 

He said it honestly, with a desire to right himself in her 
eyes. 

" You see one side," proceeded Miss Allard, in her even 
tones. "Perhaps I cannot see that side, but I see the 
other and is it worth it ?" Then she broke off. " I beg 
your pardon," she said, with the same cordial smile. " I 
should not have spoken. Won't you come in ? Good- 
evening !" 



THE DESCENDANT 173 

But as he turned to go he looked back at her as she 
stood in the doorway. "Some day," he said, "will you 
explain ?" 

And she answered : " Some day perhaps." 

A child had come to the door a slight, crippled girl, 
who leaned upon a crutch. Anna Allard stooped and lifted 
her in her arms, and he saw her head resting upon the 
child's upturned face. Then the door closed upon them, 
and he went out into the night. 

Miss Allard's personality was an enigma to him. There 
was a depth that he could not fathom, for all its limpid 
serenity some indefinable attribute which he failed to 
grasp. It was not the fact of her evident disapprobation 
thousands showed that : he had been harried by the news 
papers and assailed from all the pulpits in the land. Nor 
was it that she was reasonable in her disapproval ; liberal 
ity, though uncommon, was not impossible, and he had en 
countered it occasionally. 

But his impressions were fleeting; he concluded that 
Miss Allard was a good young woman with a fine carriage 
and a healthy interest in life, and so forgot her and her 
grave arraignment. 

Fate deals largely in small circumstances. Like life, if 
she ignored the infinitesimal she would go a-begging for 
the infinite. Her puppets are impelled onward in a given 
line ; following the rhythm of motion, they circle through 
time, and but for the attraction of existing forces might cir 
cle indefinitely. But the curl of an eyelash, the turn of an 
ankle, a moment's vanity, and lo ! the circle is broken and 
a collision has come. Then the combination of gases goes 
to pieces, and from the chaos another combination rises, 
phoenix-like, and passes into space. And the littleness and 
the greatness are in no wise diminished. 

Michael dropped in at Semple's one afternoon, and as 
he was leaving Mrs. Semple handed him a note. 



174 



THE DESCENDANT 



"Will you leave this at Anna's?" she said. "The ser 
vants that aren't sick are busy, and I can't get a messen 
ger. I hate to trouble you." Michael took the note and 
left. He had no intention of asking for Miss Allard, but 
the crippled child came to the door, and, without taking the 
note, called "This way" as she limped along the passage. 

Reaching the first landing, she threw open a door, reveal 
ing Miss Allard in the meritorious employment of darning 
stockings. 

She looked up quickly with an unruffled welcome, but 
with a swift flush rising to her clear cheek. As she laid 
the work-basket aside he noticed how neatly the small 
packages were folded, and what an air of orderliness per 
vaded the room. He gave her the note, and she thanked 
him, but in a precise, business-like manner, as if there was 
no possible reason for his lingering. As none suggested 
itself, he turned to go, lifting, at the same time, an open vol 
ume which had slipped to the floor. It was Weismann's 
" Heredity," and a sudden interest awoke in his face. 

" You read Weismann ?" he asked. " Do you agree with 
him ?" 

" He is interesting," responded Miss Allard, with a non 
committal expression. The answer provoked Michael, it 
was so distinctly an evasion of his question ; and to remark 
that Weismann was interesting seemed to him as superflu 
ous as remarking that pain was unpleasant. There was a 
displeased flash in his eyes, but her indifference disarmed 
him. How can one be angry with a woman if the woman 
doesn't care? And apparently she did not care. The flash 
died from his eyes, but they still rested upon her ; there 
was a trimness about her figure that showed itself in the 
narrow white bands at her throat and wrists, in the set of 
her black gown, in the shimmering braids of her red hair. 
She was a woman that a sick man might roll his delirious 
eyes upon and feel refreshed, or a Don Juan turn to from 
his voluptuousness as he would turn to pure water from 
Eastern wines. Michael was glad that he had seen her, as 



THE DESCENDANT 



175 



we are glad that we have tasted the fresh air of the country 
side. 

His hand was upon the door, and he was passing out 
when suddenly the memory of their last conversation oc 
curred to him, and he veered round. His movement was 
so sudden that Anna, who had risen, started back, and he 
surprised the relief in her eyes. 

" Will you tell me," he asked, " what you meant by ' the 
other side ' ?" 

" ' The other side' ?" repeated she, inquiringly. 

"The side of my work that you had seen," he explained. 

For a moment she was silent, her steadfast gaze upon his 
face. Her head rested against a Persian scarf, and the dull 
tones accentuated the lights in her glorious hair. 

" Shall I tell you ?" she asked. The direction of her 
glance shifted, and wandered through the window to the 
budding branches of a tree without. "Perhaps I should 
not have spoken. Meddling does no good, and I'm not a 
missionary, but but your paper has a wide circulation. It 
enters thousands of homes ; people read it for your language 
and your style who otherwise would shrink from an expres 
sion of your opinions. Its influence is sweeping, and its in 
fluence is your influence." The flute-like quality of her voice 
was at its highest. Its penetration was almost painful, its 
decision merciless. " I work among the poor the very poor. 
I see the harm done by useless agitators by men who write 
and speak things they dare not act upon, but which igno 
rant men and women accept as a gospel. No, I do not mean 
Mr. Semple ; he does not half the harm that you do." 

Her accusing voice, pitilessly clear, rang upon him like a 
clarion ; before her level glance his nervous lids quivered 
and fell. Then he raised his head in protest, shaking back 
the heavy waves of his hair. 

" Harm !" he emphasized ; "your words are badly chosen." 

" It is not your motive that I call harmful," she said, 
more gently so gently that he almost forgave her. " It is 
not your cause I do not judge that I but see the effects." 



176 THE DESCENDANT 

"And they?" 

" There was a family upon Hester Street, an old woman, 
several grandchildren, and a boy a bright, enthusiastic fel 
low, the main support of the family. He had been the sup 
port for five years, and was not more than twenty the ap 
ple of the old woman's eye " 

" Well ?" for she had paused. 

"The first time I heard your name I remember it well, 
for the old woman was sick and I had gone to see her The 
Iconoclast lay upon the table, a newspaper print of yourself 
was pinned upon the wall, the boy stood in the centre of 
the room. The old woman was speaking ; she said, 'Them 
Akershemites will be the ruin of you.' And the boy rushed 
from the room in a rage. I asked her what she meant, and 
as she pointed to the print of yourself she said, ' My boy is 
possessed with his notions, and they will be the ruin of him.' 
The boy banded together a small party, calling themselves 
Akershemites ; they were inspired by a hatred of their em 
ployers, of every form of restraint. They made depreda 
tions upon the small storekeepers in the neighborhood, 
which ended in a row in which one of them was shot. We 
tried to get the boy a situation, but he would not sacrifice 
his liberty. The old woman and the children went to the 
almshouse, and a month later the boy cut his throat." She 
had spoken coldly and distinctly, but when Michael looked 
at her he saw that her eyes were suffused with tears. 

"But," he said, with an angry intonation, "you are un 
just. The boy did not follow my teaching. Clearly you 
are ignorant of my doctrines, else why should you make me 
responsible for a lawless riot ?" 

" I hold you indirectly responsible," she replied. " Can 
a cause be good of which the effects are so disastrous ? 
Shall I go on ?" 

"Yes." 

"There are many from which to choose. I have seen 
much misery. Some " with a laugh " I grant you, had 
never heard your name, others had. There was a man 



THE DESCENDANT 177 

with a wife and five small children. As long as duty bound 
him to his post he supported them ; then he became your 
disciple, and you well, he deserted them for a younger 
woman, that was all. You may say it was the natural evil 
of the man's nature. So it was. But until your latitudina- 
rianism released him from his conventional scruples, that 
nature was kept down by training and inherited belief. 
Yours is an ideal theory, Mr. Akershem, intended for an 
ideal humanity, with an innate desire to do right and a 
superhuman recognition of good and evil. The world as 
it is to-day cannot stand your views. You have done 
harm. But I have said enough." 

"Yes," retorted Michael, bitterly, "you have said 
enough." His face was pallid, and his breath came quickly. 
" You have sought to fling all the misery of the world upon 
my shoulders. This is the result of my honest endeavor 
to help mankind this " His emotion touched her almost 
against herself. 

"Is it worth it?" she asked, gently. "You, who can do 
so much good, is it worth it ?" She reached out and touched 
his arm with a soothing, unconscious gesture, such as she 
would have used to' a child in pain, but he shook her hand 
away. 

"Since you have made me a devil you are pleased to 
pity me ! Am I to answer for every boy that has killed 
himself, or every man that has deserted his wife ?" 

" I am sorry that you are hurt," said Anna, " but I can 
not unsay what I have said." 

"Why should you unsay?" he retorted. "It is little to 
me what people say of my " Then he broke off abruptly. 
" I beg your pardon," he said. " Good-afternoon." 

And he went down-stairs, while she returned to her 
darning. 

Michael had gone out raging. He was furious with Miss 
Allard, with the world, with himself. The imperturbability 
of the girl's manner irritated him unbearably. She seemed 
so secure in her position so assured that right and com- 



178 THE DESCENDANT 

mon-sense were on her side. If he might have accused 
her of impetuosity, of intolerance, of exaggeration, he would 
have felt less wroth with her. But she was so wholesome 
ly practical, so free from any morbidity of judgment. 

"How dare she?" he cried, passionately "how dare 
she hold me accountable for the imbecility of those beg- 
gars?" 

Had Driscoll, had Semple, had Rachel herself accused 
him of wielding a heinous influence he might have passed 
it over with superficial concern. But a stranger, and that 
stranger a woman who, like Miss Allard, was serenely con 
vinced of the justice of her charge, and asserted as one who 
knew whereof she spoke it was maddening ! 

And, then, was it true ? 

He held his breath for a moment, shuddering at the pos 
sibility. A curious revulsion of feeling swept over him, 
and in an instant an instant such as we have all endured 
he realized the utter littleness of it all, the pettiness of 
his revolt, and the impotence, for good or evil, of his men 
tal cyclone. 

Walking rapidly, he passed his office and turned into the 
Bowery. He read the signs, "Corned -beef & Onions, 10 
cents," as he had read them for the last seven years, with a 
shrinking disgust a loathing for poverty and filth. With 
all his socialistic tendencies, he shrank from the unwashed 
half of society with a delicacy that was pitiable. As near 
ly united as he stood to the lower walks of life, the only 
feeling that personal contact with the representatives of 
those walks aroused in him was a feeling of profound dis 
gust. The aristocratic side of his nature was strong enough 
to overpower the radical in a question of direct intercourse 
with that portion of humanity to whom he believed his ex 
istence to be dedicated. He might declare the equality of 
man in a glowing paraphrase while sitting next a patrician 
in a clean shirt-front, but before a soggy inhabitant of Bax 
ter Street his enthusiasm for human fellowship was lost in 
the practical dissent of eyes and nostrils. 



THE DESCENDANT 



179 



His sympathies were radical, his tastes aristocratic, and 
as yet he had managed to equalize the two. 

When he had walked some distance he stopped before 
the door of a third-class bar-room. After a moment's hes 
itation he entered, nodding to the proprietor across the 
counter. It was a squalid room, reeking with the fumes of 
bad whiskey, dense with the smoke of bad cigars. Several 
straggling foreigners lounged upon the tables. 

" Give me a drink," said Michael. And as the proprie 
tor filled his glass he spoke to him with attempted famili 
arity. "You do a good business?" he inquired, pushing a 
second glass towards him. 

The man, a heavy German with a bloated face and an all- 
over greasiness, nodded gruffly. " It might be vorse," he 
admitted. 

Upon the counter lay a pile of papers. Michael motioned 
to them. " Do they sell well ?" he asked. 

The man nodded, leering with his bloodshot eyes. 

" Which is ahead ?" 

"Ze Vorld." 

" And The Iconoclast?" 

Michael picked it up, pointing with his forefinger to the 
leader. He remembered that he had thought it particular 
ly impressive. 

" Now, say, my friend, what do you think of this ?" he 
asked. 

The man drained his glass and wiped his mouth upon 
the back of his hand. 

" Zat," he observed, smacking his heavy lips, " ees vat 
does you say ? r-rot." 

Michael's laugh rang out so suddenly that a group of 
men at the back of the store lounged over, glasses in hand. 

" Zat," repeated the proprietor, " ees r-rot ; but it pays." 

"Exactly. And the man who writes that rot. You 
know him ?" 

" I haf knowed him. He haf drunk much of my viskey." 
He leered again. 



l8o THE DESCENDANT 

" What do you think of him ?" He would have liked to 
have chucked the lying old codger into the beer-vat. 

" Ze man ze man he knows as much of life as he knows 
of sauerkraut." 

" Exactly," observed the man who had written it ; " just 
about as much about life, my old philosopher, as he does 
about sauerkraut." 

" The Iconoclast 7" called a young fellow in a blue smock, 
tossing a nickel across the counter. He took the paper 
and departed. 

" Zat boy," observed the philosopher, " ees mad daft 
mad wid ze rot." 

Michael left the shop, walking rapidly in the direction of 
his office. 

" Kyle," he said, suddenly bursting into the editor's office, 
" write the leader for to-morrow, will you ?" 

Kyle looked up concernedly. " Not used up ?" he asked. 
" We can't do without you. The work would fall through." 

" Damn the work !" said Michael Akershem. And he 
passed into the next room, slamming the door after him. 
Going to the desk, he took from it a couple of printed 
sheets, and, folding them once, he tore them deliberately in 
half, letting the pieces fall into the waste - basket. " It is 
rot," he said. 

As he went out again Kyle rose and followed him. 
" Take care of yourself," he said ; " the people need you." 

" Damn the people !" responded Michael Akershem. 






CHAPTER VII 

Miss ALLARD stood before her mirror. It was morning. 
Through the open window came the cheerful far-off sound 
of church-bells, ringing across all the wealth of May and 
sunshine. 

She had just fastened her hat by means of a silver hat 
pin, and beneath the flapping brim of black all the warmth 
of her hair shimmered with aureolic lustre. The figure re 
flected by the mirror was a thing to gladden the eyes and 
refresh the heart, rich-hued, supple, and straight-limbed a 
a woman strong to endure. 

She put up her hand, arranging with a few careful touches 
the muslin band at the neck of her black gown. In garb 
she might have been the sister of some holy order ; in per 
son, a pure -eyed young rustic, fresh from her vernal 
showers. 

She turned away, lifting the prayer-book from the bureau. 
In the next room the child called to her, and she stood 
looking down at it with a suppressed anxiety. 

" Shall I stay with my pet ?" she asked. 

But the child shook her head. Marie was coming to 
play. Marie was clever. 

Then Anna stooped to kiss her and passed out. Down 
the stairs she went, singing softly to herself. In the hall 
below a young married woman stood with her husband. 
As Anna passed the woman turned and smiled upon him 
with a quick, resistless tenderness. The girl caught the 
look and imprisoned it in her own heart. 

Then she opened the door and stepped into the spring 
sunshine, and into the presence of Michael Akershem. 

Like a vision she broke upon him in the doorway, a sup- 



182 THE DESCENDANT 

pie, straight-limbed figure with a crown of ruddy hair and 
a fresh, grave smile a vision of honest, wholesome woman 
hood. The smile faded, he could but notice, as she held 
out her hand. 

" I wish to talk to you," he said, " about about my work, 
but I am too late." 

" I go to my mission chapel," she said. And added, 
" Perhaps you would like to come." 

" Are you also engaged in cramming religion down inde 
fensible throats," he asked " in offering a creed in place 
of bread ?" 

But he walked beside her through all the supernal radi 
ance of the springtime. 

" It is more digestible, at least, than the bread that you 
offer," she said. " Stolen food sits heavily. You from 
your office chair offer them, through the medium of a news 
paper, the belongings of other people ; we go among them, 
working to impart a love of cleanliness and order, to fight 
the effect of your influence. Our maxim is that the object 
of religion is to add to the general happiness a utilitarian 
dogma, you see, but it has served us well. And you what 
do you know of the poor?" 

" Nothing ; I know as much of New York tenement life 
as I know of the tenement life upon Mars." He looked 
into her fresh, plain -featured face, and met her amused 
glance. 

" O Apostle of Modernism !" she said, " whose conviction 
is in proportion to his ignorance. If this hysterical century 
could taste of the tree of knowledge, how many ' isms ' would 
go to air ! Do you know, you remind me of the small boy 
who said in his composition, 'Human beings don't eat to 
matoes,' and when asked for his authority, replied : * I 
don't'!" 

But Michael did not laugh. He never laughed except 
when he was amused, and Anna did not amuse him. He 
felt that she must be taken seriously, and that in her mirth 
she belied herself. 



THE DESCENDANT 183 

As Michael entered the little chapel he seemed awkward 
ly at a disadvantage. Since his childhood he had not been 
inside of a church, and there surged upon his memory, over 
borne by later experiences, the phantom recollections of his 
youth gloomy phantoms, thronging ghoul-like above the 
graves of his childhood years. 

He sat through the short service rapt and abstracted, 
hearing not the voice of the preacher, seeing not the white 
washed walls nor the work-worn faces of the congregation. 

Beside him sat Anna Allard, her pure face uplifted, the 
glory of her hair "making a sunshine in the shady place," 
but he knew her not. 

Manhood, the errors of ignorance, the sins of knowledge, 
had passed from him with the heated world without. The 
whitewashed walls were the walls of the little chapel upon 
the hillside ; the slow voice of the preacher, the voice of his 
childhood's friend; the gaudy stained-glass window above 
the altar, the window he had stared at upon a Sunday until 
he had known the colors in Charity's robe and the features 
upon the beggar's face, tint for tint. 

He was back again, and he was young and eager, with his 
passions surging fresh and strong, and the power for loving 
good and hating evil swelling unsubdued within his breast. 
Upon his right hand sat the farmer, his heavy head nod 
ding from side to side, and beyond him the farmer's wife, 
her black straw bonnet tied by purple strings, the pin in 
her carpet- shawl standing in dagger -like erectness; and 
in the long pew at their side the ten children, in ten blue- 
checked pinafores, with ten flaxen braids, from Betty, who 
lent the gospel hymns the ardor of a war-cry, to little Lilly, 
whose drowsy head nodded like a flower upon its stalk. 

And the voice, falling sad and stern : " For all that is of 
the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and 
the pride of life is not of the Father, but of the world. . . . 
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; but he 
that doeth the will of God abideth forever " 

Abideth forever ! 



184 THE DESCENDANT 

And beneath the minister's eye, in the foremost pew, sits 
pretty Emily in her blue-lined bonnet, her eyes cast heaven 
ward like a saint eyes not more blue than saint-like, not 
more saint-like than sunny. 

Ah, pretty, pretty Emily, the desire of his youth ! And 
from the height of Emily he descends to the peaks of the 
far-off, smoke-wreathed mountains, terrible in their eternal 
calm. Those mountains were to him the limits of the 
world, godlike barriers, beyond which yawned the color 
less gulf of infinity. Now he had crossed those barriers, 
and had found that the finite was only a little less removed, 
the infinite unthinkable. 

Again the voice: "For this is the promise that He hath 
promised us, even life eternal. , . ." 

Life eternal ! 

Why, he has but to turn his head, he knows, and life and 
the tumult of living will be over and done with; but one 
step from the passionate noise of time to the passionless 
silence of eternity. 

Beyond the vine-wrapped walls of the church, beyond the 
moss-grown ledge of the open window, the long, pale grasses, 
a visible dirge, bend above the storm-stained marble slabs. 
From his corner of the pew upon the Sundays of nineteen 
years he has watched three of these marble slabs, standing 
like sentinels above three sunken graves. 

" Sacred to the memory of Mary Elizabeth !" 

" Sacred to the memory of Hannah Maria !" 

" Sacred to the memory of Susan Virginia !" 

How alike they must have been, those sisters, and what 
small sisters, whose memories were protected by three tiny 
slabs and three fallen graves ! Why, one pale, long grass 
was not more like unto another than was one sunken grave 
to the sunken graves beside it. 

And again he heard a voice that was not the voice of the 
preacher, but the voice of a royal philosopher, sounding 
along the ages, and speaking, in living tones, across nigh 
two thousand years ; and the voice spoke, saying : 



THE DESCENDANT 185 

"Consider that soon thou wilt be ashes, and either a 
name, or not even a name ; and a name is but sound and 
echo. . . . And tjie things which are valued in life are empty 
and rotten and trifling, and justice and truth are fled. . . . 
Throwing away, then, all things, hold to those only which 
are few. ..." 

A name is but sound and echo ! 

And for the sake of a sound and an echo he had striven 
long and suffered and been sore bespent. He had put 
aside reason and the quiet which reason begets, and had 
toiled in a world amidst the little things thereof, which were 
many, forsaking the great, which were few. 

"For the soul is a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and 
fame a thing devoid of judgment. . . . And everything 
which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to 
the soul is a dream and a vapor, and life is a warfare and a 
stranger's sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion. . . ." 

Fame is but sound and echo ! 

And his greed of glory, his lust of power, the pride of his 
eyes, were less in the immutable void of eternity than the 
waving of the long, pale grasses in the wind. 

" I shall give you a chance to extend your knowledge of 
human nature, Mr. Akershem. 1 ' 

He turned almost instantly, to meet Anna Allard's eyes. 
Apparently the service had had no depressing effect on 
her; she was as cheerful as usual. 

" I am not sure that it is desirable," he answered, shortly. 

" I am sure that it is desirable for other people," re 
turned she. "Perhaps if you knew them a little better 
you'd let them alone." 

Her frankness irritated him again ; for all his concessions 
she had not yielded a letter of her convictions; and he 
knew that she entertained not the remotest intention of so 
doing. The unswerving constancy of purpose at once per 
plexed and attracted him ; it was the subtle force that exer 
cised its ascendency over his nature in its new-born uncer- 



186 THE DESCENDANT 

tainty. Weakening in his own, stability of convictions in 
another he recognized wonderingly. 

They had turned into Mulberry Street, and the density 
of the atmosphere oppressed him. The old loathing, the 
old intolerable disgust for poverty seized upon him, and he 
longed to flee to cleanliness and space. 

Through swarms of Italian women, deep-bosomed and 
heavy of tread, they passed rapidly. The broken, guttural 
tones, robbed of their native melody, grated upon Michael's 
ears ; the stale odors of decaying vegetables stored in reek 
ing cellars offended his nostrils. He hated it all, hated the 
squalor, the filth, the inevitable degradation. It was an 
everlasting reminder of the destiny that he had missed by a 
slip of the cup. 

Anna Allard passed along with healthy indifference, her 
skirts held slightly aside, her brows unbent. Again her per 
sonality impressed him in its forcible uprightness. She 
possessed, in a great measure, that illusive quality called 
goodness, which so few good people possess, and which 
may be defined as a mean between spiritual unsophistica- 
tion and worldly wisdom. It was said of Miss Allard that 
she was good, implying that a persuasive sanctity was one 
of her attributes a sixth sense, as it were, conveying re 
ligious impressions. Whether the impression conveyed was 
as potent as the manner of conveying it or not is a subject 
for dispute, and one upon which my profane pen need offer 
no suggestion. 

But Michael felt, without defining, the attraction. It was 
not Miss Allard's indomitable rectitude that caused him to 
become conscious of a state of moral inanition ; it was the 
charm with which she managed to endow that rectitude. A 
Mulberry Street missionary, possessing a withered profile 
and a shrinking manner, might have been doubly virtuous 
with but slight success. And, after all, there are few of us 
capable of dissociating the attraction of virtue from the at 
traction of the earthly habiliments which it chooses to 
adopt. They left Mulberry Street, and she took him into 



THE DESCENDANT 187 

several tenements, bringing him face to face with the powers 
of poverty and dirt. A terrible pity took possession of him, 
a pity prompting him to sit in his office chair and hurl edi 
torial thunderbolts at the oppressors of the poor. There 
was no desire to speak to them or to touch them ; there 
was a sensitive shrinking from the crippled man upon his 
pallet bed, and from the little red-eyed seamstress in her 
curl-papers and her soiled gown. He started when Anna 
Allard lifted an unwashed baby in her arms. And yet the 
memory of her as she stood there clung to him and followed 
him far into the night. A young Madonna, the straight and 
supple figure, the outstretched arms, the wonderful tender 
ness upon her fresh - hued face, the wonderful, wonderful 
halo of her hair; and, above and beyond it all, the rays of 
sunshine falling, white and holy, into the squalid room, fall 
ing like a benediction upon woman and child, wrapping in 
a luminous stillness child and woman an eternal symbol 
of an eternal motherhood. 

At that moment he realized the emptiness of ambition, 
the futility of reward. Was he who loathed pain the one 
to close the gaping wound ? He who shrank from filth the 
one to purge from uncleanliness ? 

And ambition ? What a petty thing it is in the midst of 
a world of men, living, begetting, and passing into dust ! 

" For fame is a thing devoid of judgment, and after- 
fame oblivion, and a name is but sound and echo." 

He walked the streets that night pursued by his self-dis 
trust. He despised himself that he had fought for the sake 
of fighting, not for the sake of the cause ; for what men 
might say of him he had wrestled for the things that were, 
baptizing his battle-field with bloody sweat. For a name 
he had given his salvation. 

"And a name is but sound and echo." 

Onward before him in the night, against the blackness 
of drawn clouds, moved the memory of Anna Allard, the 
holy of holies in her eyes, her eyes upon the young child. 
What was it that brought that look into a woman's face ? 



188 THE DESCENDANT 

What might a man not sustain, smiling, for the sake of such 
a look ? 

Then, like a flash, one word broke upon his thoughts, 
and he paused and stood still as if he hearkened to a 
spoken name "Rachel!" 

Could it be that he had forgotten Rachel ? Rachel who, 
he had told himself, was the breath of his life ! Rachel whom 
he had loved with the passion of his youth and the strength 
of his manhood ! 

He went to her studio, and found her light still burning. 
As he entered she gave a little cry, and ran towards him 
with outstretched hands. 

"Why, Mike, you bad, bad boy, where have you been ?" 

Her gladness, her trust, her utter lack of suspicion, 
touched him, and he stooped to kiss her with a poignant 
sense of remorse. 

As she looked up at him a sudden fear, vague and illu 
sive, flamed in her face, and she spoke quickly : 

" Mike, is there anything wrong ?" 

"Wrong! No, dear." 

And then a sudden cowardly shame took possession of 
him, for he had noticed the details of her toilet, and con 
trasted the careless drapery, the wind-blown hair, with 
Anna Allard's dainty trimness. Rachel was beautiful just 
then, but, to do him justice, he was not a man to be over 
borne by physical beauty ; it was only an attribute to him, 
not a thing desirable for its own sake. 

It was cowardly to criticise Rachel ; he had never done 
so before; and yet at that moment the fall of her gown 
seemed careless, the loosened coil of her hair a trifle un 
kempt. He hated himself for the thought, but the thought 
would not be shut out. 

Then he started, for the girl, who had been watching him, 
suddenly threw herself upon him with a breathless sob. 

" Love me ! love me ! love me !" she cried. " I care for 
nothing but you nothing but you ! Let the world despise 
me, but you you love me !" 



THE DESCENDANT 189 

Her eyes, deep and solemn, like the heart of a storm, 
bound him by a spell ; the slim white hands clung to him 
and would not let him go. 

With a swift repentance he caught her to him. " My 
star!" he said. 

Still her eyes cast over him their wonderful spell. " Swear 
that you love me swear it 1" 

" I swear it !" 

She threw back her head with one of her impetuous 
movements, her face gleaming whiter in the dim light, a 
rapturous worship thrilling in her voice. 

"I adore you !" she said. 

Again the cursed thought : Would a good woman have 
loved him as Rachel loved him ? Was not the worship she 
offered up to him a proof of her own unworthiness ? Nay, 
a good woman sees ever between herself and the man she 
loves the inviolable shield of her own honor ! 

Ah, the thrice-accursed thought ! Would it never let him 
rest? 

It was the old, old expiation that Nature has demanded 
and woman paid since the day upon which woman and de 
sire met and knew each other. 

Ah, the old, old expiation ! 



CHAPTER VIII 

" HELLO, Shem !" 

Akershem looked up. 

" Your entrance is rough on nerves," he remarked, irri 
tably. 

Driscoll leaned in the doorway, surveying the world in 
general and the editor in particular with his accustomed 
complacency. 

" I say, Shem, what is the matter with The Iconoclast ?" 

Akershem shifted uneasily, running his hand impatiently 
through his hair. He looked worn and harassed, and the 
lines upon his forehead had deepened. 

" Matter ?" he echoed. " Why, nothing." 

Driscoll shook out a folded paper and held it towards 
him. 

" For the past fortnight who has served us with edito 
rials?" he asked. "Not yourself, my good fellow; and 
don't tell me that this is Kyle's work, for I know better. 
Why, here are two whole columns, and not an abusive epithet 
to speak of. Who's your man ?" 

Michael kicked the paper viciously under the desk. 

" To tell the truth, I got Springer to do it. Pie's one of 
our reporters, you know a sensible fellow " 

" That fool ! Why don't you do the work yourself ?" 

" Confound your catechizing ! I'll not have it !" 

Driscoll gave a long, low whistle. "Well, of all the 
dashed impudence !" he said ; then added, amiably, " I'm off 
to Java, you know." 

" To Java ?" 

" Oh, the reports of Dr. Dubois and his Pleistocene dis 
covery made me feverish. I am convinced that only crim- 



THE DESCENDANT I 9 I 

inal negligence has prevented our verifying Darwinism by 
producing the bones of our ancestors. I'll satisfy myself 
in regard to the Java find, and then I'll get up an anthropo 
logical expedition for the purpose of making explorations 
in tropical Asia. I am inclined to believe that man origi 
nated thereabouts, and I intend to search for the exact 
spot." His eyes were glowing with enthusiasm, his face 
flushed. The old restless spirit was in possession. He 
pursued the dangerous, sweet divinity change. 

Akershem was devoid of sympathy. "What a pity you 
weren't born a beggar!" he said; "you might have accom 
plished something." 

Perhaps of the affections of Michael's life the affection 
for John Driscoll was the strongest ; certainly it was the 
steadiest. And yet when Driscoll had gone he felt vaguely 
relieved ; he half wished that the Java scheme would ma 
terialize. For the past two weeks he had been undergoing 
a curious revulsion from his old nature, and the presence 
of Driscoll seemed a living reproach. And with his new 
born sensitiveness he dreaded reproach ; he craved not only 
self-esteem, but the esteem of his fellow-men. 

Impatiently he rose, and paced up and down the uncar- 
peted floor. He felt feverish, alert eager to sweep the past 
aside, and to start, unfettered, in pursuit of the future. 

With the past he knew that Rachel was associated ; 
Rachel, who had given him life when he was famished, 
sympathy when he was sore beset ; Rachel, who had been 
passionately content to cast her art and ambition as a step 
ping-stone before his feet, and who, when upon that step 
ping-stone he could not reach the goal, had raised it by the 
throw of her own heart. 

The morning sunlight flitted across the floor, bringing to 
his memory the flitting figure of Rachel Rachel, with lumi 
nous eyes, with tender, quivering lips, the Love who had 
been offered up upon the altar of his own divinity. 

Upon the scales of his judgment his life and his life's 
ambition were found wanting when weighed in the balance 



I 9 2 THE DESCENDANT 

with Rachel's. And yet, though Rachel was fair, Rachel be 
longed to the past to the past, with his old bitterness that 
needed a balm, his old ambition that craved a ballast. 

In his future Rachel had no place. Now he wanted 
more far more than Rachel could give. He wanted the 
one thing that she had not. He wanted the honor of good 
men and good women. He wanted a clean future, unbe- 
smirched by any blot upon the closed pages of his past. 

Then, dimly, as one who sees through a glass darkly, he 
felt that the respect he wanted was the respect of Anna 
Allard, the homage of her fearless rectitude, her implacable 
honor. To him, in his limited experience, the esteem of 
Anna Allard meant the esteem of the other half of the 
world the better half, with its trust and purity and faith. 

He knew then, and he had always known; that the desire 
for Anna Allard was not the desire for love. Love in his 
nature must hold ever a secondary place must serve ever 
as the handmaid of ambition. And with love he had been 
surfeited but honor lay still unattained. 

And he felt no remorse before the memory of Rachel. 
It seemed to him but natural that she should fill the part 
which she had chosen in his life. If she was to be buried, 
a victim to his discarded theories, it was because she had 
accepted those theories, discarding upon her side the laws 
of her conscience. And the thought again : A pure woman 
would have spurned passion for the sake of principle ! 

Ah, the old, old expiation ! 

A man is never so merciless as to a dead desire, never 
so implacable as to the woman whom he has once loved 
and loves no longer. In the whole course of his life Mi 
chael had never been so severe as he was to Rachel Gavin, 
never so unmerciful as when he held himself most just. 
And he judged her as he had never judged himself, be 
cause with himself the wrong had not been of his own be 
getting, but had descended to him in place of a name. But 
Rachel with Rachel it had been love, not mistaken prin 
ciple, and it was for that love that he judged her. 



THE DESCENDANT 193 

" Please, sir, will you speak to me ?" 

With a start he turned to meet her brimming glance. She 
stood before him, dressed as he had first seen her in the 
artist's blouse and cap, with a drawing-block in her hand 
and her hand outstretched. At the apparition he fell back, 
surprised into a quick remorse ; then he looked at her, and 
his heart hardened. Had he found her overburdened with 
a sense of her own unworthiness it might have been differ 
ent. At a word of serious realization, he told himself, his 
anger would have melted. But, alas ! poor Rachel -, respon 
sibility sat restlessly upon her all eyes are not dimmed by 
tears. 

What was life to her, he asked himself, if she met it so 
lightly ? Had she not played with ambition as with a toy, 
and might no* love be as frivolously dealt with ? Why 
should he fan the waning embers of his remorse for the 
sake of a pain that would be over and done with in the 
curl of an eyelash ? And his heart hardened, and he drew 
back. 

" I forced an entrance," said Rachel ; " a guard in the 
guise of a reporter tried to stop me, but I told him that I 
had important news about the murder trial, so he let me in. 
Aren't you glad he did ?" 

She laughed, and by that laugh she lost her kingdom. A 
well of merriment overflowed and rippled upon the air; 
laughter was in her deep, gray eyes, where the tears were 
hardly dry, laughter was upon her lips, laughter dimpled 
across cheek and brow; she was all laughter. The little 
cap upon her head slipped jauntily aside, and the dark line 
of hair was sharply defined upon her white, blue-veined 
forehead. She was the old, audacious Rachel, whom he 
had met and pondered over some two years ago a charm 
ing Rachel, but a Rachel whose day was done. 

"Aren't you glad?" she repeated, and she rested her 
hands upon his shoulders and looked into his face. " Don't 
you want those items dreadfully ?" 

" I am busy," he answered. 
13 



IQ4 THE DESCENDANT 

" Aren't you glad to see me ?" she questioned, lightly, as 
if forcing a foregone conclusion. As she spoke she gave 
him a little shake. 

" I am busy." 

" Busy ! Nonsense ! Why, you were walking up and 
down this blessed floor as idle as as that reporter. What 
were you thinking of ?" 

" Many things." 

" What ? Was I among them ?" 

" Yes." 

" Really ? Then if you have time to think of me, why 
haven't you time to talk to me ?" 

" I was thinking seriously." 

" Well, I never ! And can't you talk seriously, too ?" 

" To you ?" he asked, and smiled. " Wh/, you look like 
an escaped sunbeam." 

" What a pretty speech ! But shall I look like a cloud ?" 
And she bent her heavy brows upon him, closing her eyes 
until only the smutty purple shadows under them were visi 
ble. " Do you like me now ?" 

"It does not suit you." 

"What is the matter? Are you angry?" Something 
tender and childish about her smote him suddenly with a 
sharp pain. How young she looked ! 

" Oh no !" he answered ; " not that, dear." 

" Am I good ?" 

" Yes." 

" Am I pretty ?" 

"Yes." 

" Then what is the matter? Why can't you become nice 
and good-humored ?" 

Then like a flash all the gayety vanished ; a wondering 
look settled upon her face, and the sweet, fresh merriment 
fled. 

" There is something wrong, dearest ; what is it ?" 

He shook his head ; but, with a sudden, passionate inten 
sity, she spoke : 






THE DESCENDANT 195 

" How dare you say nothing is wrong when you look 
like that ? Something is wrong, and I will know ! I will 
know !" 

" What will you know ?" 

" Why you look like this why you wish me to go what 
it all means. Tell me !" 

He took her hands very gently. What slender hands they 
were ! 

" There is nothing wrong that I can tell you, Rachel ; 
nothing is wrong. Shall I go out with you for a walk ?" 

"No." 

All the slumbering force of her nature had awakened, and 
thrilled in her voice. For a moment she was silent ; then, 
drawing her ha.nds from his grasp, she stood white and 
straight before him. The words came slowly : 

"For some time, Mike, I have felt I mean I have 
thought that that something had come between us. I 
tried not to see it-, but one cannot shut one's eyes, and 
and I fear that it is so." 

" Rachel !" 

" What it is I do not know. I have thought and thought 
until my head ached, and I could think of nothing that I 
had done or said that could have made the difference." 
Her voice was clear and steady now. " It may be that I 
am mistaken. If I have been unjust, forgive me. I know 
you have many things to do in life besides to love ; and yet " 
then she looked at him, her solemn eyes summoning him 
to judgment " is it true ?" she said. 

" Rachel !" A note of pity softened his voice, and, like 
a flash, it told upon her. He almost held his breath at 
the change. A warm light leaped to her face ; the flame in 
her eyes blinded him as they swept over him, hot with pain. 
She drew back, straightening herself to her full height as to 
withstand a charge, and throwing back her head with a 
gesture of resistless pride. 

"Because I have loved you," she said, "do not think 
that I cannot forget you." 



196 THE DESCENDANT 

He moved forward, but the coldness of her voice checked 
him, and he stood still. 

" If we have played with love," she said, " we have played 
with it together, and neither of us has been wounded in the 
farce. I need no pity. I chose to love you, and, when I 
choose, I can forget you." 

Then her voice broke, and she fell to trembling as he 
reached forward and caught her in his arms. " My dear ! 
my love !" he cried, "forgive me ! I am only a poor blun 
dering fool ; forgive me !" 

But her vehemence had died away, leaving her weak and 
sobbing upon his breast. " I I lied," she said. " I love 
you and I did not choose to love you and and I can't 
forget you." 

He loved her still, he told himself. He did not tell him 
self, but perhaps he dimly felt, that it was a love from which 
reverence was slipping away. What he could not tell him 
self was that this mental revolution, which shadowed Rachel, 
was the result of an illumination cast for him by Rachel 
herself upon human life and human fulfilments. His love 
for her had been born of a desire for the unattainable, and 
had fed upon sympathy ; and that sympathy failing to ex 
tend to changed conditions, he found that mere love was of 
all things frail the frailest. 

He kissed her and cursed himself ; and, with sobs still 
echoing in her voice, she left him and went into the street. 

At first she walked heavily, feeling wretched and undone. 
But the air was so fresh, the sky so blue, the world so pul 
sating with energy, that one must put aside borrowed cares 
and be glad with nature. And, after all, it had been a mis 
take he loved her, she was sure he loved her, and what 
mattered all else ? So she quickened her steps and walked 
briskly along the crowded streets, shooting soft, luminous 
glances from beneath her drooping lids, putting away doubt 
and distrust. 

Then as she reached her door she caught sight of an 
organ-grinder with a monkey upon his back, and she called 



THE DESCENDANT 197 

to the man, taking the grinning little animal from him and 
caressing it in her arms. It was so cunning and so tiny ; 
and when it climbed upon her shoulders and laid violent 
hands upon her cap she forgot her depression and bubbled 
with delight. 

" He's such a little dear," she said to the man " such a 
darling little dear." And she gave him the change in her 
purse. 

Then the man, who was an Italian and skilled in beggary, 
doffed his battered hat. " The Lord bless your sunshiny 
face," he said; and he made the monkey practise his ridicu 
lous little tricks, while the sunshiny face shone upon him 
and the sweet laugh rang out. 

A passer-by, one who was once young but was now old, 
and whose youth and age had been spent in the ways that 
lead to the getting of wealth, heard the laugh and turned 
to see from whence it came. He saw, and his withered 
heart grew green again at the sight, and he forgot, for the 
moment, that joy was vain and gold the only good. " A 
happy woman," he said, and smiled enviously. 

And yet where the laughter sparkled in the deep, gray 
eyes the tears were hardly dried ; in the rippling laugh, if 
one listened, one heard the echo of a sob, and beneath the 
mirth, in her heart, a heaviness was weighing her down. 

Alas, poor Rachel ! all eyes are not dimmed by tears. 



CHAPTER IX 

SUMMER had come throbbing, passionate summer, when 
Nature had ripened into the fulness of maternity. The 
earth had quickened joyously into fertility ; not a meadow 
but teemed with emerald verdure, not a barren space but 
grew pregnant with life. 

In the city the fog of soot and smoke hung heavily ; the 
sweet, glad sunshine, reaching the tenement roofs, shifted 
in leaden rays as if robbed of the essence of its gladness. 

Summer in the country, with its free, wide stretches of 
purpling moors and its ecstatic insight into the sacred 
heart of things, is as unlike the city summer, with its palpi 
tating humanity and its tainted atmosphere, as life is unlike 
death. The one is the world as God planned it ; the other 
as man has made it. 

Rachel Gavin fretted and pined in her fifth -story front. 
She kept close during the long, hot days, and only stole 
out, wan and white, in the twilight for a breath of evening. 
In imagination she saw herself roaming over tangled fields 
and in shadowy woodland ways, her sketch-book and camp 
ing-stool strapped upon her arm. But the city fenced her 
in, and her straitened means, the result of her idleness, 
had to be lengthened by stringent economy. She had not 
( allowed Michael Akershem to give her so much as a paint 
brush, and the stratagems to which she resorted in her 
financial straits were many and varied. Once he had 
brought her a diamond ring, and she had turned upon him 
like a flame. " How dare you ?" she had cried, passion 
ately. " Do you wish to insult me ? And I despise dia 
monds!" He had been a little vexed and a great deal 
startled. "I shall be beholden to no man," she had said. 



THE DESCENDANT 199 

" I will lake nothing from you, do you hear ? Nothing ! 
nothing !" 

" Forgive me," he had answered ; " it is as you will." 

But he had grown dimly conscious of a lack of compre 
hension. The delicacy of Rachel's decision had been be 
yond his power of perception. As some visions are unable 
to grasp, in a certain color, minute variations of shade, so 
in a wide survey of a fact, subtle distinctions were lost 
upon Michael Akershem. That Rachel's determination 
was the one salvation to which her pride adhered he did 
not suspect, and he would have failed as utterly in an at 
tempt to distinguish between the position as she now saw 
it and as she should have seen it had she arrayed herself 
in his diamonds. To his mother, toiling in the harvest- 
fields, a nicety in point of morals could not have been more 
incomprehensible. 

But Rachel said, " I have accepted your convictions for 
your sake; you may also abide by mine." And he was 
silenced. 

So it was not only her watch that was pawned this sum 
mer ; a pink coral necklace of her great-grandmother's lay 
unreclaimed for several months in the glass case of one 
Israel Meyerbeer, and her guitar passed under those gold 
balls never to return at least, into her possession. She 
suffered silently, however, for her pride set a seal upon her 
paling lips. She packed Madame Laroque and her belong 
ings off to the seaside, watching her depart with smiling 
eyes; and when the old flower-woman at the corner clapped 
her withered hands, where the chilblains were barely healed, 
and declared that she felt the summer in her bones, Rachel 
answered with her ringing laugh. She had lost her watch 
and her great -grandmother's necklace and her peace of 
mind, but, outwardly, she had not lost her frank good- 
humor. 

Rachel was not the only one who sighed in spirit, tortur 
ing her imagination with visions of the country-side. The 
heat had penetrated into the office of The Iconoclast, and 



200 THE DESCENDANT 

the printer's devils groaned themselves blue, while in the 
composing-room the foreman mopped his streaming brow 
and thundered maledictions after the recreant editor. 

Michael was out of town. For the first time in his nine 
years of journalistic work he had taken a vacation. It was 
Hedley Semple who had borne him off for a fortnight's 
shooting in the White Mountains. Mrs. Semple was en 
sconced with the children and several friends in a dilapi 
dated farm-house which she had purchased near North 
Conway, and Akershem had been drawn into the party. 
Like a bit of untried life to him was this happy-go-lucky 
holiday, spent in the midst of the mountains, with Hedley 
Semple's enthusiastic sportsmanship and the frank cordi 
ality of Mrs. Semple's large and pervasive presence. It 
was a pleasant fortnight, and Michael entered into the 
high-spirited informality with a boyish zest, grasping at the 
youth which he had missed. For the first time he was 
thrown with a crowd of wholesome, unaffected young people 
girls who had no theories and no missions but the general 
theory that life is pleasant enough in its way, and the mission 
to endeavor to make it more so. It was refreshing to him ; 
it robbed him of half his cynicism, and knocked the life out 
of his fundamental maxim of social depravity. 

When he returned to the city he was in excellent health 
and spirits, and it was with a masterful determination that 
he took up his work again the work that he was begin 
ning to hate. 

One day in September, as he worked in the composing- 
room, a sudden disgust for his employment swept over him, 
and, rising, he walked rapidly up and down the room. 

" Mr. Akershem," said the foreman, " can you let me 
have those three sticks of copy ?" 

Michael sat down again, taking up his pen with an air of 
supreme self-mastery. 

There came a peal from the telephone bell, and he looked 
up impatiently. "That is the twentieth time in the last 
half-minute," he said. 



THE DESCENDANT 2OI 

The telephone boy turned, the trumpet still at his ear. 
" Cockril & Holmeson," he said, " say that in your account 
of the strike at their works you put the wages the strikers 
were receiving at half a cent too low." 

He looked at the foreman as he spoke, but Michael ut 
tered an exclamation and returned to his work. 

The bell rang again. The boy looked up. " Mr. Coggins 
says we made him say that Anarchism was not an unnatu 
ral outcome of " 

" Pshaw ! I don't care what he said." 

Michael sighed. ''That infernal telephone again!" he 
exclaimed. 

" Please, sir" the telephone boy addressed vacancy and 
looked dejected "Miss Caroline Houston, of Thirty-first 
Street, says if we don't retract that libel concerning her in 
to-day's issue she'll she'll she didn't say what she'd do, 
but she's coming up in a few minutes." 

" And the last form going to press," muttered the fore 
man, helplessly, while Michael cried : " Tell the next person 
to go to the devil !" 

For a moment there was silence. Michael tossed a cov 
ered sheet aside and took up a blank. A reporter looked in 
at the door, and, seeing the state of affairs, cautiously looked 
out again. 

The telephone rang sharply, imperatively, with a finish 
ing snap at the end. 

" Please, sir." 

No answer. 

" Mr. Akershem !" 

"Well?" 

" A gentleman to speak to you." 

"Tell him he can't." 

The words were shouted through the telephone. 

" He says he must speak to you, sir." 

" Tell him to go to thunder." 

" Please, sir, he says he won't, and he won't budge till he 
speaks to you." 



202 THE DESCENDANT 

In a rage Michael rose and strode to the trumpet. 
" Who, in the devil's name, are you ?" he shouted. 

" Hello, there !" came Driscoll's voice. " I've something 
to say to you." 

" Can't say it. I wish you'd find some other amusement. 
We're going to press." 

He gave an angry jerk and left the telephone, picking up 
his papers from the table. He cast a sympathetic look at 
the foreman, who held his head in one hand as he took 
down notes with the other. His tone softened wonderfully. 
The better side of his nature came out to his fellow-work 
man. " Come into my room, if you like, Jenkins," he said ; 
" I'll give you this in twenty minutes." 

And he passed into his office. 

It was not until some hours later that he recalled Dris- 
coll and his urgent desire for an interview, and shortly after 
dinner he went to hunt him up. 

He found Driscoll in his sitting-room, waiting patiently 
for the last of the dinner things to be removed from the 
small table. 

" Hello !" he said. " Draw up and have some coffee and 
a cigar. "You'll -find that box of Havanas to your right 
first-rate." Michael sat down and glanced about him. 
There was an air of solid comfort about Driscoll's rooms 
which never failed to impress him, and which he had striven 
long and unavailingly to copy. 

" How comfortable you look !" remarked Michael. " I 
wish I could reach your degree of perfection in that line." 

" My greatest talent," returned Driscoll, with complacent 
assurance. " I tell you, there is more real science in mak 
ing life pleasant than in tracing its origin." 

" Was it Tertullian who said that to be happy is to flaunt 
one's self in the face of the Creator ? And there is some 
truth in it. I am never particularly cheerful that I don't 
wonder what particular misfortune Providence has pre 
pared next in order. But you had something to say to me." 

" And I have. I met Splicer, managing editor of The 



THE DESCENDANT 



203 



Journal of Economics, you know. Well, his health has failed, 
and he has to quit work. He thought he might get me into 
his place. It's a pretty responsible position, you see, but I 
told him political economy was too stagnant for my taste, 
and took the liberty of suggesting yourself. He was wild 
in your praise, said in controversy you hadn't your match. 
Indeed, he magnified your ability considerably. You know 
you scored him once on the sanitary advantages of ash 
barrels, which accounts for it. He said he would have been 
glad to use his influence for you had you been less unsound, 
and I ventured to hint at the moderation of your views." 

"It is not so. My views have not altered. I shall not 
leave The Iconoclast:' 

" Oh, well, suit yourself. It's a pretty good chance, how 
ever, if they offer it to you, which isn't likely. I thought I 
might as well prepare you " 

" I shouldn't accept it," returned Michael, insistently. 
But as he walked home, after leaving Driscoll, he knew that 
his determination had been but momentary, and that he 
was already beginning to waver in his allegiance to The 
Iconoclast. In view of the foreseen contingency, his present 
work became more distasteful. It was uncongenial; not 
enough so, perhaps, to cause him to throw it aside with no 
immediate opening in view, but uncongenial enough to war 
rant his exchanging it for an equally successful and more 
respectable position. And even if he was not sufficiently 
quixotic to sacrifice his future to his principles, still he was 
sufficiently ambitious to attempt, were it possible, to gratify 
principle and ambition at a single stroke. Yes ; after all, 
if the position were offered he would consider an accept 
ance. In his primitive disregard of consequences he over 
looked the difficulties of his reversion. By an open and 
barefaced desertion to pass from his own party to the 
front ranks of his opponents seemed, in its way, feasible 
enough. That his party might resent his desertion did not 
occur to him. 

Cheerfully sanguine with regard to the opportunity he de- 



204 THE DESCENDANT 

sired, he went home and smoked a peaceful pipe in the sat 
isfaction of his decision. With the thought of his changed 
position had awakened the thought of Anna Allard. For a 
moment he allowed himself to indulge in a soothing reve 
rie. He saw her beside him, bending above his chair the 
keeper of his home and his heart her serene judgment sus 
taining him through life. He saw her grave smile illumined 
by the glory of her hair ; saw her bend above him with his 
image in her eyes ; saw them threading together, through 
youth and through age, into eternity, the pathway of their 
lives. He thought of her calmly, with not one quiver of his 
pulse. He desired her mentally. She personified the pro 
prieties of life nothing more. From his wine husks he 
was preparing to return to virtue, and virtue wore the hair 
and eyes of Anna Allard. 

Then he put the thought from him angrily, and fell to 
thinking of Rachel. 

The next day, going to his office, he found Kyle awaiting 
him. The young fanatic had grown more fanatical of late ; 
his appearance had become generally unkempt, and there 
was a strangely lurid light in his eyes. 

"We needed copy," he began ; "and as you left none I 
ventured to look into your desk. I found an article upon 
"Tyrannicide " which I made use of. It suited us exactly." 

A flame kindled in Michael's eyes. 

" I consider it officious," he said. " The thing was writ 
ten two years ago and not intended for publication. I shall 
have it recalled." 

" It is too late," returned Kyle, doggedly ; " I have given 
it to Jenkins. I had no idea you'd cut up so. I shouldn't, 
in your place." 

One of his rare smiles flashed across Michael's face, 
giving him a brilliantly youthful look. 

" I don't believe you would," he said, frankly. " I beg 
your pardon, Kyle ; I was hasty." 

"And there is something else," continued the other. 
" Paul Stretnorf was here. He wishes you to deliver your 






THE DESCENDANT 205 

lecture upon Russian Nihilism before his society. I told 
him I was sure he might count upon you. It is important, 
you know." 

Michael started. The smile passed from his face, leav 
ing a harassed expression. 

"You are getting me into a peck of trouble, Kyle. I 
can't do it." 

" You must," persisted Kyle, passionately. " I as good 
as gave my word for you. The demand is imperative. 
Why, one would think that you were " He checked him 
self. 

" That I were what ?" demanded Michael. 

" Nothing, old man ; but we must have the lecture." 

" That I were what ?" 

Kyle threw back his head and fixed his lurid gaze upon 
him. " That you were playing trimmer !" he said, in a 
passionate undertone. 

For a moment Michael looked at him, growing white to 
the lips. He realized in a flash that his part was less easy 
than he had believed it, that what he called principle other 
men would call perfidy, and that because of that principle 
or perfidy he should have to reckon with Kyle. 

" Do this for me, Akershem," said Kyle. 

Michael hesitated, his gaze abstracted, the vein upon his 
forehead growing livid from contraction, his eyelids twitch 
ing nervously. Then he reached forward and laid his 
hand upon Kyle's shoulder. 

" You believe in me, Kyle ?" he said, and there was a 
certain wistfulness in his voice. 

" Unto death," responded the other. 

The old brilliant smile illumined Akershem's face as he 
spoke. " I will deliver the lecture," he said. 



BOOK IV 
REVERSION 

" It is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers 
that walks in us. It is all sorts of dead ideals and lifeless old beliefs. 
They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we can't 
get rid of them. . . . And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid 
of the light." Ibsen. 



CHAPTER I 

To Rachel Gavin the days seemed crowding past like 
gray gnomes glutted with presage of evil. With passion 
ate incredulity she blinded her eyes, feeling in the darkness 
their leering presences around her. Then she looked and 
understood. She understood that the way upon which she 
had walked was the way of a quicksand ; that the things 
upon which she had looked were but phantasmagoric noth 
ings ; that the rock upon which she had anchored had crum 
bled, as rocks will. There remained only the end. 

" But I will be happy !" cried Rachel, in all the passion 
of her vehement youth " I will be happy !" And she had 
grown beautiful from the assumption of omnipotence, as if 
an infusion of fresh blood stained the white of her skin 
with its scarlet flame. Against the tenacity of her will 
what power could prevail ? In her eyes happiness had 
clothed itself in the image of Michael Akershem. As he 
was the one thing needful to her existence, so the vigor of 
the desire with which she desired him redeemed the shrink 
ing value of her self-esteem. The buoyancy of her belief 
in him had exalted her above conventions; but despised 
conventions avenge themselves as inevitably as despised 
truths. It may be that we have never clearly defined 
wherein lies the difference between! them. 

But if Rachel suffered now, she made no sign. If she 
missed the intensity of Michael's first affection, she missed 
it silently. If the carefully acquired courtesy with which 
he treated her showed pale beside the flaming memory of 
that turbulent devotion, who was the wiser ? 

Before her always, sometimes shrouded by unnatural leth 
argy, sometimes veiled by a natural sanguineness, loomed, 



210 THE DESCENDANT 

in a terrible obscurity, the dread of entering upon that val 
ley of humiliation which is found at the end of the way ol 
false ideals. She resented the gentleness with which Mi 
chael treated her; she resented the superlative considerate- 
ness of Michael's friends , and, most bitterly, she resented 
the ill -concealed compassion of her former companions, 
She who had renounced art scoffed at them that they re 
gretted the renunciation. 

When Driscoll came one day and lounged about hei 
studio, and talked to her in that deferential manner which 
she had observed closely of late, it stung her like the sting 
ing of a lash. She writhed in the nervous tension of her 
exasperation. 

"I wish you wouldn't treat me as if I were insane or in a 
fever," she .remarked, irritably. 

Driscoll's mouth dropped in astonishment. He walked 
to the window and stood gnawing his mustache abstracted 
ly. His back expressed an amicable forbearance, his face 
a prophetic gloom. The silence was oppressive. There was 
a lack of sprightliness about the passers-by that savored 
of dejection. He shook himself resignedly and glanced at 
Rachel from the corner of his eye, after which he beat an 
almost inaudible tattoo upon the window-pane with the fin 
gers of one hand. He quoted, gravely : 

" ' I never saw a purple cow, 

I never hope to see one ; 
But this I'll tell you, anyhow, 
I'd rather see than be one.'" 

With an energy born of boredom he descended to over 
tures. "Well, he remarked, placidly "well, as we were 
saying, the wind sits in the east. 1 ' 

" If you have anything to say," continued Rachel, with 
asperity, " please say it, and have it over. I hate skirmish 
ing !" 

Driscoll's mouth dropped a degree lower, and his eyes 
grew wider. 



THE DESCENDANT 211 

"But I haven't anything to say," he protested, "so how 
can I say it ?" Then he grew hopeful. " I can quote you a 
line or two if it will answer," he added. 

Rachel was not to be mollified. " I don't know the rea 
son," she said, "but I wish you didn't always look as if you 
were thinking things." 

" I assure you," retorted Driscoll, with solemnity, " my 
mind is a perfect blank." 

Rachel laughed nervously, her glance flashing brilliantly 
through the dark shadows encircling her eyes. She inter 
laced her fingers restlessly. " Perhaps I am insane," she 
said; "perhaps that is why you are so civil." And she 
added, with the recklessness of desperation, " I see no other 
reason." 

He regarded her contemplatively. "If you will know," 
he returned, with a whimsical disregard of her earnestness, 
; ' I was thinking that the abolition of slavery has more to 
inswer for than is written in history." Then he became 
suddenly serious. " And I was also thinking," he added, 
slowly, " that not one of us is worth your putting out your 
land to ; but it is like you to do it, and it is more like us 
:o want you to." 

Rachel started, and the scarlet fled from her face, leaving 
t like marble. Her lips trembled ; the stars were lost be- 
lind the rain - clouds in her eyes. She tore at the em- 
Droidered edge of her handkerchief nervously. " I I am 
>o childish !" she said, and burst into tears. 

He watched her quietly, pale to the lips. " Don't !" he 
>aid, at last, stammering awkwardly. " Don't !" Then he 
>poke quickly. 

" Rachel," he said, " if it had only been" He checked 
limself ; the word was never spoken. It was the restraint 
)f a man in whom passion had long since been throttled. 
Eie regarded Rachel as he regarded the world, with hon- 
jst cynicism, and a quizzical acknowledgment of what she, 
is well as the world, might have been to him and was 
lot. 



212 THE DESCENDANT 

When she looked at him he was conscious only of her 
eyes tragic eyes, haunted by tears. 

" I am happy," she said, " I am perfectly happy." There 
was a pitiful refutation in her voice. " It is only my work 
that troubles me," she added, and looked into his face and 
saw that the lie was as naught. " It is my work," she re 
peated. 

"Of course !" assented Driscoll, heartily "of course! 
What else could it be ? As a friend of mine used to remark, 
'What with your confounded advantages and your cursed 
attractiveness, you lack only common-sense !' Not that I 
intentionally cast any aspersions upon your intellect," he 
added, hastily, " for you will take it up again and I shall yet 
see the great picture." 

" I don't know." Rachel wavered in her answer. Then 
she stood up, and her glance met his as he leaned above 
her. A wave of color flooded her face. At the thought 
of Akershem she reddened before Akershem's friend. A 
flash of her old iridescence illumined her. 

"I have chosen to live/" she said. 

"As we have all chosen," he answered, simply. "I as 
well as you, and the world as well as ourselves." And he 
took the hand that lay in her lap with a gesture that was 
half consolatory. " And like most choices, we regret it," he 
said, and left her. 

" Do you ever think," asked Rachel of Akershem that 
night, " how different life would have been for us both had 
we never loved ?" 

"Yes," he answered, truthfully, " I have thought." 

She flashed a brilliant glance upon his face. The light 
ness of her voice drowned the pain beneath. " How bare 
it would have been, and how cold !" she said. 

" How brilliant for you !" 

"But how cold!" 

" Cold ! With Fame ?" 

" It does not warm." 

He grew tender. 



THE DESCENDANT 213 

"Does this?" He put his arm about her, and, as she 
lifted her head, kissed her lips. 

She warmed, a glow overspread her face, and that vivid, 
illusive flame, at which he had so often marvelled, wrapped 
her from head to foot. 

She laughed softly with happiness. " So you aren't 
sorry ?" she asked. 

"Sorry?" 

" Not sorry that I failed ?" 

" You did not try." 

The old haunting jealousy of her work was gone, and it 
pained her. 

" I might have been an honor to you," she said, with 
rash audacity, " to leaven the lump of your reputation." 

His brow wrinkled and grew harassed ; the twitching of 
his lids increased. The superficiality of her manner per 
plexed him ; he knew not of the unguessed depths that lay 
below. He knew only that the recklessness of speech which 
had at first attracted now repelled him. 

" My reputation is not so black as you are pleased to 
suppose," he retorted. 

She laughed provokingly. 

" You contrast it with mine," she said, " which, I doubt 
not, outrivals the raven's wing." 

"Don't, Rachel!" he pleaded. "One must consider 
such things." 

" As ebon reputations ?" she inquired. " Mine is at your 
service." Then she made him a mocking courtesy. " Sir 
Respectability, may your shadow never be less !" 

She stood in the falling firelight, a vivid, elastic figure, 
all the supple curves emphasized by the strenuous motion. 
From her straight, white brow to her agile feet she was all 
energy and action. A scintillant charm, born of her spirit 
and the genial firelight, sent for an instant the swift blood 
to his brain. But half smiling he turned from her to the 
ruddy coals, which seemed inert and lifeless. There was 
nothing vital save herself. 



214 THE DESCENDANT 

" What a pity that one becomes stupid as soon as one 
becomes respectable !" she continued. " When we cease 
to be interesting we become virtuous, it is so much easier. 
That is why very plump and pudgy people are always so 
good." She was grave suddenly. A shaft of light falling 
over her revealed the wistful lines of her lips. "Would 
you have loved me better had I been a saint?" she asked. 

But Michael was thinking of something else suggested 
by her words, and he did not hear. " Ah ! What was 
that?" he asked, absently. 

She stared at him a moment, a sharp terror whitening 
her face. With a passionate gesture she put out her hand, 
blindly warding off the black shadow that loomed before 
her. " It it is nothing," she faltered. " I was only jest 
ing as usual." 

Her knees trembled, and, yielding to a passing weakness, 
she knelt beside him, resting her head upon his hand. He 
was kind, but kindness was mere lack of passion ; he was 
gentle, but gentleness was foreign to his nature. In the 
old time he had been neither gentle nor kind, but he had 
loved her. Then he had wounded her by his intensity ; now 
he lacerated her by his tenderness. Then the wounds had 
been the wounds of love and the pain pleasant ; now that 
love was dead, tenderness was but the empty shroud and 
little worth. The hand beneath her cheek did not quiver; 
she missed the old answering throb to her touch. 

With a sigh she rose to her feet, looking down upon his 
abstracted brow. He glanced up and smiled ; then, seeing 
that she was pale, he drew the scarf she wore more closely 
about her. As he did so his hand brushed her throat, and, 
as it passed, it left a crimson flush. Abandoning reserve, 
she stooped quickly and kissed the hand that lay upon her 
shoulder. 

" Good-night !" she said. 

" Good-night !" he echoed. 

She reached her door and came back. She was trem 
bling with a vague foreboding. 



THE DESCENDANT 21$ 

Quietly he drew her into his arms as one draws a child, 
but she clung to him with a passionate cry. 

" Oh, my heart ! if there was only love in the world ! 
Only love in all the wide, wide world !" 

" There is something else ?" he asked, wonderingly. 

She shook her head as she turned away. " Everything 
else," she answered. Then a yearning seized her to have 
him lie to her, and she lingered, standing with upraised 
eyes and hanging hands. A forlorn hope burned in her 
heart that it might all be a dream, and that he would 
awaken her with a touch. But the hope was forlorn, and it 
ended forlornly. He looked down upon her passively. 

"Rachel," he said. She thrilled and wanned suddenly. 
" Do you wish anything ?" 

She grew cold. " No," she answered, and passed out. 

At that moment she was waging a revolt against Fate as 
impotent as Michael Akershem's. A nauseating disgust 
for mankind seized upon her a disgust for petty passions 
that mouldered to dust, and for pettier aspirations that but 
tainted the heaven to which they aspired. As yet her por 
tion of gall and wormwood was bitter to her lips. She had 
not learned that when one has drunk deeply one becomes 
indifferent to the gall and oblivious to the wormwood. It 
is merely a matter of taste. 

The next morning as Michael stooped to kiss her before 
going to his office she drew back. 

" I detest forms and ceremonies," she said. 

He regarded her with surprised eyes, his brow contracting. 

"Is it only a form ?" he asked. 

And she answered, " What else ?" But in her heart she 
was longing to have him contradict her as vehemently as 
he would once have done, forcing back her words with a 
storm of protestations. The fact that he submitted to her 
proved, as naught else proved, the dearth of emotion. He 
smiled at her as he went out ; and because he smiled she 
knew that the words caused him no pain, and because they 
caused him no pain she hated him and herself. 



216 THE DESCENDANT 

But that afternoon, when her natural optimism had van 
quished the forebodings of the morning, and she had lost 
the memory of his smile, repentance took hold of her, and 
she looked eagerly forward to reconciliation. 

Lightly she determined to meet him as he left the office 
and walk homeward, and from a fleeting sentiment she 
dressed herself as he had first seen her, wearing the cap 
and blouse with a fresh dignity of carriage. The reaction 
from the unusual depression sent a swift light to her face, 
and the dimples beside the eyes rippled mirthfully. In one 
instant she had warmed from the passionate pallor of the 
morning to an iridescent vivacity. As she looked at her 
self in the glass she caught the eyes of her reflection, and 
laughed breathlessly from sheer sympathy. Long after 
wards she remembered the freshness of the face that had 
looked back at her, and the memory was as keen as pain. 

She opened the window and leaned out, testing the 
warmth of her clothing. A smack of frost was in the air, 
and as it brushed her she shivered slightly and drew back. 
A light coat lay upon the divan, and she slipped it on, 
pausing to give a brisk touch to the wide sleeves. Then 
she nodded gayly to herself and went out. In the elevator 
she drew on her gloves, carefully fastening the six buttons. 
She was humming a silly little French song, and the words, 
dancing in her head, made her wrinkle her brow in a quick 
grimace : 

"Voyez ce beau gar9on? 
C'est 1'amant d'Amande." 

Buoyant and alert she was, feeling the nervous capability 
of action which stirs us in early autumn, and which usually 
ends in nothing. 

In the street, as she passed with that resolute step which 
characterized her, people turned to look after her with 
brightened eyes. A lady in a white fur cape caught sight 
of her approaching figure, reddened, and turned aside ; a 
shop-girl carrying a heavy bundle stood still as she passed, 



THE DESCENDANT 217 

and was torn by the green fangs of envy ; a dapper young 
foreigner put up his glasses, eyed her critically, and heaved 
a relieved sigh that the eternal American girl might be 
numbered among the things that abide not. 

Rachel paused a moment before a florist's window, the 
odor of violets floating idly about her thoughts. Looking 
up, she smiled in answer to a passing nod. It was one of 
her fellow-students, a woman who had started with her at 
the Art League. She remembered the rivalry that had ex 
isted between them and the victory she had won. 

" What was it worth ?" she asked. " She has outstripped 
me now, and who cares ?" And she felt a contemptuous 
pity for that other woman, and for the art students, and for 
their teachers, and for all who painted with cold brushes 
upon cold canvas. 

" How are they better than stones ?" she asked. " They 
have not lived." And upon the woman who had out 
stripped her in the race, and all such, she smiled unenvy- 
ingly as unenvyingly as that other woman smiled back 
upon her. 

Optimism, which was as the sunlight of her energetic 
nature, gilded with its shifting rays the clay upon which 
she trod. She was uplifted by the surging vitality within 
her. 

Kyle, meeting her upon the corner, raised his hat with 
an enraptured smile. " Summer lingers yet," he remarked, 
with a touch of Irish blarney. 

Rachel blushed. She had long disliked Kyle and his 
compliments , they gave her an unpleasant sense of being 
considered unfettered, and admiration, from all save Aker- 
shem, was mere milk and water. " A lingering summer is 
invariably a very sickly, frost-bitten one," she replied, tart 
ly, " and a very foolish one." 

He smiled affably. "You will meet Akershem on the 
next block," he said ; " I passed him." And he hurried on. 

Rachel quickened her steps. A sharp wind blew down 
the street, wrapping her skirts around her and blowing a 



218 THE DESCENDANT 

loose lock of hair across her face. She put up her hand, 
impatiently brushing the hair aside, and, looking up, she 
saw Michael Akershem. 

With an impulsive movement she went towards him, when 
she saw that he was looking above and beyond her, and 
stopped. A taty woman passed her quickly a fresh, strong 
woman, with a coil of red hair showing beneath the brim of 
her hat. Across Michael's face fell a light that was as a 
reflection of the tall woman's hair. He took her hand and 
stood looking into her eyes, a passionate admiration in his 
gaze. 

Rachel drew back into the shadow of the crowd; then 
she passed them and went on her way. 

The sun had gone down. It had grown suddenly cold, 
and with a shiver she fastened the collar of her coat. She 
was stunned and bruised, and her limbs were heavy. It was' 
not pain that she felt, but weariness. Thinking she had 
walked too far, she glanced up at a lamp-post Fourteenth 
Street. She wondered what had brought her to Fourteenth 
Street, and, remembering that she needed some embroidery 
silks, she entered a shop, taking a seat beside the counter. 
There was some difficulty about the shades, and she select 
ed them very carefully, recalling the shop-girl, as the pack 
age was being tied up, to add an intermediate skein. At 
the moment she thought how absurd it was to bother about 
silks, and how absurd it was for people to work colored 
flowers upon white linen. It all seemed so useless. And 
when she was forced to wait for her change she wondered 
if the time would never come when such a tedious medium 
of exchange would be abolished. All the little accessories 
of civilization seemed so irksome. 

A man lost his hat in the street, and it was caught by the 
wind and carried along the sidewalk. Rachel laughed un 
controllably. What ridiculous things hats were, after all ! 
and why did every one upon the block make a catch at it 
as it went by ? What useless expenditure of energy upon a 
hat ! How happy that man must be to care whether he lost 



THE DESCENDANT 2IQ 

it or not ! And she felt that humanity, with its hats and its 
loves and its hates, was but disgusting. What came of it 
in the end ? Or did it go on forever, with its ambitions that 
came to nothing ; its lies, that deceived not even men them 
selves ? 

She shivered as from a chill wind. "What does it mat 
ter," she asked, wearily, " whether I saw him or not ? One 
must always be seeing things, and it was not much to see. 
He looked at her. Yes, to be sure he looked at her. What 
of that ? People usually look at each other when they meet. 
Coward !" She despised herself for the attempt at self- 
deception. "He looked at her as he no longer looks at 
you. He loves her, but he once loved you. His love is ad 
justable. How convenient !" she laughed, with a sudden 
recognition of the humorous side. 

Reaching her room, she took off her coat, laying it care 
fully away. After drawing off her gloves she smoothed the 
fingers before placing them in the drawer. " What useless 
things gloves are !" she thought. " I shall stop wearing them. 
Why do people make themselves uncomfortable?" She 
brushed her hair and sat down near the fire. A heaviness, 
resembling the effect of an anodyne, stole over her. She 
looked upon life and all suffering with vague, unsympathetic 
eyes. She watched the little silver bird upon the clock as it 
swung to and fro, knowing that when the hour had reached 
seven, Michael, missing her at dinner, would come to seek 
her. With a shrinking dread she listened for his footsteps. 
A crisis had come, she knew, but she knew not whither it 
would lead her, and just now she was hardly interested in 
the result. She was conscious only of extreme physical 
fatigue. The door opened and Akershem came in. 

" Rachel !" His buoyant tones cut her like steel. She 
quivered from head to foot. Her head rested upon the 
back of a chair, and she put up one hand to shield her eyes 
from the firelight, and from him. " Rachel, are you asleep?" 

She moved slightly. " Only tired," she answered. 

" Shall I send you your dinner ?" She lowered her hand, 



220 THE DESCENDANT 

observing him intently as he stood before her. She noticed 
his hair, the irregularity of his features, the lines about his 
mouth, and the bewildering blinking of his lids. A little 
nervous laugh broke from her. Strange that she had never 
viewed him so dispassionately before. 

He came and leaned over her, resting one hand lightly 
upon her hair. As if stung by his touch she drew back. 
" Dinner ?" she repeated. " I wish none, thank you." 

She rose and stood before him, avoiding the contact of 
his arm. Her hair had fallen in a heavy wave upon her 
forehead, and she put it back feverishly. 

Michael watched her with anxious intentness, the fire 
light falling over him, revealing his figure, flashing into his 
brilliant eyes. 

" Is it that you regret your work, Rachel ?" he asked, sud 
denly. 

Rachel drew back and looked at him, measuring his 
height with her glance. She was white to the scarlet line 
of her lips, and her hands trembled. In her eyes a resolu 
tion flickered and took flame. She moved a step forward ; 
her fingers stiffened as they interlaced. 

" Yes," she said. Then as she turned from him the tears 
started to her eyes. " Oh, leave me alone !" she cried. 
" Leave me alone !" 

Without a word he left her ; and passing into the adjoin 
ing room, she threw herself heavily upon the bed. 



CHAPTER II 

IN the night she awoke in sudden terror. Across the 
city a clock struck the hour, its solemn tones tolling knell- 
like upon her excited mood one ! two ! Something tangi 
ble about the darkness seemed to bear down upon her with 
stifling force. She remembered her old childish idea that 
it was a great black monster with fiery eyes, and the im 
pression was so vivid that she half reached out, hoping to 
find that she was in the little trundle-bed at home, and 
that from out the darkness her mother's hand would be 
stretched to soothe her fear. For a moment she lay breath 
less and still, her thoughts taking no definite shape. Then 
she strained her ears, hoping to hear the crowing of the 
genial rooster in the barn -yard, and to learn that day was 
breaking in the east only the distant rumble of the ele 
vated road, and faint, uneasy sounds that seemed but the 
echoes of the noise of departed day. She sat up and 
reached for the candle, striking a match with nervous fin 
gers. For an instant the pale-blue flame shot up, illumin 
ing all the familiar objects that seemed in the half-light 
invested with grim irony, and dying as quickly down. She 
struck a fresh one, holding her palm beside the candle to 
intercept the draught. It ignited, and, placing it on a chair, 
she crouched shivering upon the bed and looked around 
her. The dim outlines of her figure, reflected in the gray 
length of the mirror, impressed her with the shock of a vis 
ible presence. In her white nightgown, with the pallor of 
her face and the dark of her heavy hair, there was a certain 
solemnity about her. She looked tall and strange and 
sharply indistinct, as a shadow that is thrown upon a sheet 
of white. In the silence and dim light she sat silently. 



222 THE DESCENDANT 

She regarded the room and all the commonplace objects 
of every day with curious eyes, as if seeing them clearly for 
the first time. The long shadows cast by the uncertain 
candle lent a weirdness to the apartment, the furniture, and 
even to the dusk beyond the window. She looked at the 
wardrobe, and wondered why it seemed to move and topple 
towards her. She put up her hand, instinctively warding it 
off, and, realizing her hysteria, laughed nervously. Upon a 
chair lay her clothes, thrown carelessly where she had slipped 
out of them, and she wondered if they were really insensible 
to pain if there were any objects in this vast universe too 
inanimate to suffer. She followed with her eyes the length 
of a stocking and the space of a slender shoe. How light 
ly those shoes had trodden the street below only yesterday, 
and how heavily had they returned ! Then she looked at 
the pictures on the wall at Murillo's "Magdalen," so 
plump and passionless; at a worn engraving of Bellini's 
"Gethsemane"; at the "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian." 
She smiled, thinking that those hands had striven to render 
agony and had failed. What a mere outline was the pas 
sion in the garden ! how languishing the pose of Murillo's 
holy sinner ! 

Upon the bureau stood a photograph of Michael Aker- 
shem, and from behind it her own face looked back at her 
from the gloomy mirror, as the ghost of the past looks over 
the brow of the present. 

In one outcry her agony broke forth : " O God 1" 

She ran her hands through her hair, pressing them into 
her temples with almost brutal violence. After that one 
outcry she was silent, but the passion seething within her 
seemed to rend her chest asunder. The expression of her 
face but for its quiet would have been despair. 

"Let me think," she said, suddenly, her voice sounding 
so distinct in the obscurity that she stopped half startled. 
" I can't think. How annoying it is ! I know he loved 
me. Yes. And he loves me no longer, I know it. But 
what does it mean to know a thing? And how do I know 



THE DESCENDANT 223 

it ? And what is it, anyway, that I should know ? It has 
been, and it is over. All things are over sooner or later, 
and what matter is a month, a year, or ten years ? In the 
end he would have gone from me. It is only that it has 
happened this year instead of the next or the year after." 

And then she saw Michael Akershem as he had first 
appeared to her impassioned, energetic. She saw his eyes 
burning with her image. She felt the touch of his hand, 
the pressure of his arm. With the gesture of a wounded 
animal she cowered downward, beating the bedclothes with 
impotent hands. Her dry eyes stared out into the flicker 
ing gloom. 

" I hate myself ! Oh, how I could curse and spit upon 
myself ! What am I I, a target for the stones of the 
world what am I that I should chain him to me?" 

A shadow upon the wall, cast by a piece of bric-a-brac, 
took the shape of the devil's face, mocking her with its gro- 
tesqueness. She stared at it with a dull fascination, watch 
ing it as it danced upon the papering, leering now this way, 
now that, but always seeming to draw a little nearer. A 
nervous fear shook her like an ague. She started up with 
a desire for human companionship. With the candle in her 
hand she went to the door, her white gown trailing behind 
her like an altar-cloth. But with her hand upon the knob 
she paused, and, turning, walked to the window, leaning out 
into the chill night, and straining her ears to catch some 
familiar sound. A policeman strolled by upon his beat, 
and his resonant tramp acted soothingly upon her over 
wrought nerves. She laid her head upon the sill, watching 
his figure as it passed, like a gigantic shadow, beneath a 
distant light. The cold air blew over her, piercing her thin 
gown. It was as ice upon the brow of one in fever. Again 
the clock struck one! two! one! two! She lay there 
until the darkness broke and a thin line of gray showed in 
the east. With the shimmer of dawn she blew out the 
candle, and, drawing on her dressing-gown, passed into her 
studio. The chill light penetrated the chinks of the shut- 






224 THE DESCENDANT 

ters, revealing as through a crystal lens the familiar rooms 
, and all the bare angularities that are softened by the chas- 
! tened glow of the day. Upon the floor lay the small ob 
jects that she had thrown aside the day before a broken 
scraper, a glass bottle labelled " Pure Turpentine," and an 
emptied and distorted tube with a trace of rose madder 
still adhering to the mouth. In the corner stood her great 
picture, the dust settling upon the curtain which hung be 
fore it. 

She looked about her with that sickening tightening of 
the heart with which we view in the gray dawn the scene 
where the day before we caught at happiness and missed. 

In the grate a heap of ashes lay cold and lifeless. Upon 
the hearth the tongs had fallen. She remembered that he 
had dropped them as he stirred the coals the evening be 
fore. A white smile at the needless ironies of life crossed 
her lips. How like that burned-out grate to her own burned- 
out heart ! The chair in which she had sat, the coat she 
had laid aside, the rug upon which he had stood these 
tortured her with a terrible sense of familiarity. Upon the 
table lay the stump of a cigar and a tiny pile of ashes in a 
silver holder. She pushed them from her with a hasty 
gesture. She hated them all these trivial objects so red 
olent of associations. 

Then she looked at the silver clock, and the little bird 
upon it seemed to wink at her with its jewelled eyes. She 
laughed nervously. What an odd little bird it was ! and 
why did the feathers in its tail all point in different ways ? 
Her laugh frightened her, and she glanced fearfully around 
at the mirror. Above the gray dressing-gown her face 
showed white and haggard. Beneath her eyes heavy shad 
ows lay. 

" Soon there will be nothing left of me," she said 
" nothing but a laugh." 

Some hours later, when Michael came up from breakfast 
to inquire for her, she did not see him. 



THE DESCENDANT 225 

" I have a headache," she said, from behind the locked 
door. " Come up early. There is a matter for us to dis 
cuss." And as his footsteps descended the passage she 
lay idly listening to them and counting the dragon's eyes 
upon the ceiling. Her breakfast was on a tray beside her, 
and she rose presently and drank her tea and ate her roll 
with a stolid determination. 

All the little monotonies of her toilet, she felt, were irk 
some. The bath was fatiguing, and she was forced to 
nerve herself to the effort of fastening her clothes and ar 
ranging her tangled hair. It seemed to her absurd that 
she should dress herself and go about her ordinary tasks 
with unchanged demeanor. She spoke to the maid who 
came to dust her room as pleasantly as was her wont ; she 
sorted the paints and brushes systematically ; and when, 
later in the day, she went for a walk she was surprised to 
feel invigorated by the bracing air. 

It was not until the afternoon that a nervous reaction 
sent a flush of excitement to her cheeks. Her brilliancy 
returned to her, and when Michael Akershem came in he 
found her awaiting him with shining eyes and scarlet lips. 
He did not see the quiver of her muscles or know that she 
was divided between a desire to rush into his arms and a 
hatred of his presence. 

She stood beside the fender, the light from the grate ris 
ing behind her and throwing her white-gowned figure into 
high-relief. Her hands were clasped before her, and her 
nails were pressed deeply into her sensitive palms. Be 
side her stood a tea-table, the lingering daylight sparkling 
prettily over its embroidered cover and over the dainty, 
gilt-edged cups. A bowl of nasturtiums curled towards 
her on their slender stems like tongues of flame. 

Coming from the cold without, Michael was exhilarated 
by the genial glow, and in harmony with the radiant in 
terior was the radiant figure of Rachel as she neared him 
with burning lips and eyes. He would have kissed her, 
but she drew gently away. 



226 THE DESCENDANT 

" How cold you are !" she said, speaking rapidly from a 
feverish dread of silence " how very cold ! Sit down. 
No, not there. You never liked that chair, you know. 
This one suits you. So you came early, as I said. Yes, 
there is something to be discussed. Why is it that the 
word discussion always reminds me of a dissecting-room ? 
I feel that when a person is discussed he is morally dis 
sected and pulled to pieces. But we sha'n't dissect any 
one but ourselves, shall we ?" 

She sat down near him, keeping upon the edge of her 
chair and turning her profile towards him. 

" Why dissect ourselves ?" he asked. " Unpleasant com 
plications are likely to ensue." 

" Oh, but it is necessary," she answered, quickly. " You 
see, we have been living, as it were, under false pretences. 
We have pretended to be happy when we were not happy 
at all. You pretended to me, and I pretended to you. It 
has been just like a game we used to play when we were 
children, which we called ' making believe,' and in which we 
made believe we were something that we were not. Now we 
must stop making believe. I don't feel like playing any 
longer ; I want to return to my real self. So here I am." 

He regarded her fixedly, his eyes narrowing until his 
gaze seemed as a stream of light thrown from a lantern 
upon her excited face. 

" So here you are/' he repeated. 

" So here I am." She moved restlessly on the edge of 
her chair. " And this means that it is all over all over, 
do you hear ? You go back to your work and I go back to 
mine ; and we will both look upon this as a little game of 
* make-believe.' " 

" But it was earnest," he said. 

She started at his unconscious use of the past tense, and 
walked hastily to the window ; then she came back, and 
played with the cups upon the tea-table. She raised a 
lump of sugar in the tongs, but it dropped before it reached 
the cup. She smiled as he looked at her. 



THE DESCENDANT 227 

"Is there any superstition about sugar?" she asked. 
" Only that foolish one about ' Many a slip,' I suppose." 

She poured the tea very carefully, and handed the cup to 
him. As he took it from her he noticed that her hands 
were trembling. 

" Rachel," he protested" Rachel, I can't understand." 

She filled a cup for herself. Her throat was parched, 
and she swallowed a little before replying. 

" Not understand !" she exclaimed, with that lightness of 
manner which had once been natural. " Well, be quiet, and 
let me explain. I was always good at explaining things, you 
know. It means just this : you and I have been very good 
friends, but friendship isn't the only thing in the world, and 
we have found it out ; and it means well, you understand." 
In a moment she went on again : " Perhaps, after a long 
time, when we are very, very old people, and have gotten as 
much fame as our hands can hold, we will sit down again 
and talk it quietly over. By that time it will all seem very 
amusing," she added. She lifted the cup to her lips again. 

He surveyed her in baffled silence; then, rising, he stood 
before her. 

" Is it possible," he asked, slowly, " that you have ceased 
to love me ?" 

With a soothing gesture she put her hand to her throat, 
it felt so strained and drawn. 

" So many things are possible," she replied, " that one 
can't be sure of anything." 

He felt vaguely aggrieved. Then he looked into his own 
heart and his faith in impossibilities weakened. If his love 
could burn out, why not Rachel's. And yet 

" I do not believe it !" he cried, hotly. 

She flushed angrily. " You were always sceptical," she 
rejoined. She looked at him firmly. The struggle had 
come, and she knew it ; and with the knowledge a nervous 
excitement quickened her to combat. The thought that he 
would yield easily maddened her ; but she was not a cow 
ard, and she faced that as she had faced the rest. 



228 THE DESCENDANT 

With vivid intensity his figure, as he stood before her, 
was photographed upon her brain. In all the years that 
came it was Michael Akershem as he looked that moment 
that she remembered. The maze of hair, the cut of his 
coat, the ink-stains upon his finger-tips, the very pattern of 
his cravat these dwelt in her mind then and forever after. 
He himself was half angry, half humbled. 

As Rachel stood there, wrapped, as in a mantle, in her 
indomitable pride, he realized, as he had never realized be 
fore, the wealth of her nature, the immensity of the love 
with which she had loved him. And then a tide of relief 
swelled within him that the crisis was to be faced and the 
suspense at an end. 

Stung by a quick suspicion, he spoke harshly. "Rachel," 
he said, " is there some one else ?" 

A wave of resentment swept over her, staining her cheek ; 
a wrathful light leaped to her eyes. She grew icy. " Why 
not ?" she demanded, insolently. And he, remembering 
Anna Allard, was silent. 

He stretched out his hand without replying. " At least 
we are friends," he said. 

Her hand closed upon his with nervous tension. "Not 
yet," she answered ; "after a time perhaps." 

She swayed and leaned lightly against him, her head rest 
ing against his arm. Then by an effort she held herself 
erect, and, lifting her head, kissed him once. " It was a 
very nice game," she said. 

In a sudden forgetfulness of all save her and what she 
had been to him, he held her from him, trying to read de 
nial in her eyes. 

" Little comrade," he said, " can't we throw up the game ? 
Can't we settle down into commonplaces and matrimony at 
last ?" 

The laugh that broke from her was a reaction from her 
passionate self-control, but he did not know it. 

" What a prosaic ending to our theories !" she said. 
" No ; it is better so." 



THE DESCENDANT 



22 9 



He turned from her towards the door. On his way out 
he upset her work-table, scattering a pile of colored silks 
upon the carpet. 

" I beg your pardon," he said, bluntly, stooping to gather 
them up. 

" Don't trouble yourself," she answered, looking up. " It 
is no matter." 

And he went out. 

Rachel stood beside the table as he had left her. She 
leaned over the bowl of nasturtiums, crushing a flaming 
blossom between her fingers ; its blood stained her hand. 
" It would all be so ridiculous," she said, " if one could only 
see the humorous side." 

Her glance fell upon the shrouded canvas, and she went 
over to it, drawing the curtain hurriedly aside. Taking 
down her palette, she emptied a tube of yellow ochre upon 
it, squeezing it out with lavish haste, after which she stirred 
it absently with a camel's-hair brush. 

" There is always something left," she said, and, looking 
up, found that the twilight had crept in upon her. She laid 
her palette aside. 

" It is too dark to work," she said, " so it won't matter if 
I cry a little." And she laid her head upon her arm and 
wept. 



CHAPTER III 

MICHAEL walked along the corridor, and pressed the 
electric button summoning the elevator. As he stood wait 
ing he straightened himself with the gesture of one relieved 
of a grievous weight. " So that is over," he said. 

The conviction of its finality was impressed so forcibly 
upon his brain that, when he reached the ground-floor, he 
was surprised to find himself wondering what course he 
should pursue in view of a possible reconciliation. The 
climax having been precipitated by Rachel, she, he told 
himself, was alone responsible. But with the sudden re 
moval of suspense, and the passing of the jubilant revulsion 
succeeding it, a gnawing doubt of his own sincerity assailed 
him. 

He left the house, walking along Eighteenth Street, and 
turning into Broadway at the corner. 

" So that is over," he repeated, in a vehement endeavor 
to reassure himself. 

Then he threw back his head with the impatience of a 
horse that resents the curb. 

" Hang it all P he exclaimed. " What is the matter with 
me?" 

A moment before he would have sworn that freedom was 
the one thing needful ; and perhaps it was, but he felt no 
freer to-day than he had felt yesterday or the day before. 
The fact that Rachel had annulled the unspoken contract 
was insufficient. A slow consciousness that he, not Rachel, 
was responsible for the annulment oppressed him with stub 
born insistence. Vainly he sought to intimidate the con 
sciousness by undue influence ; he might obscure it by san 
guine assurances, but when the assurances were hushed he 



THE DESCENDANT 231 

knew that it would rise and confront him. He admitted 
dimly that six months ago such words from Rachel would 
have had no power to release herself or him from their vol 
untary obligations. He was aware, although he refused to 
acknowledge it, that for him to retrace his steps and to ac 
cuse Rachel of the treachery of which he was unwilling to 
accuse himself would be to virtually reseal their broken 
faith. And yet 

" It is her choice." And the rising conviction that he 
lied irritated him unbearably. 

In his uncertainty he walked the streets until midnight, 
when he returned to his rooms. As he opened his door he 
spoke. "It is over," he said. As he struck a light he 
spoke again. " I will see her to-morrow," he said. 

That a personal interview indicated a truce to hostilities 
he admitted, and with a sinking confidence in his own good 
faith he shrank from clinching matters so irrevocably 
upon the side of Rachel. With the cowardliness which 
he would have derided in another, he compromised. Stand 
ing beside the mantel, he drew out his note-book, and, tear 
ing a leaf from it, scribbled a line : 

" You cannot mean it ; I refuse to consider this final. If 
you loved me, you would not let me go." 

This he kept by him until morning, when, before going 
to his breakfast, he sent it to Rachel's room. In a mo 
ment the messenger returned. There was no answer, he 
said. 

Vehemently Michael demanded whom he had seen, and, 
when he had learned that it had been Rachel herself, was 
divided between anger and astonishment. 

In a fit of anger, which was increased by a sleepless 
night, he went to his office without breakfasting. The dis 
order upon his desk annoyed him, and he spoke sharply to 
a reviewer who inquired for a missing volume. He found 
himself unable to concentrate his attention, and the task of 
pruning one of Kyle's leaders was so irksome that he gave 
it up in disgust. The editing of a paper he felt to be a 



2 3 2 THE DESCENDANT 

species of refined damnation. Suddenly he rose, pushing 
all the papers upon his desk into a confused jumble. 

" Kyle," he called, " I've given out ! Take charge of this 
confounded stuff, will you ?" 

Kyle looked up sympathetically. " Overwork, Aker- 
shem," he said. " I should advise your seeking medical 
advice." 

" Advice is the kind of rot that comes unsought," re 
turned Akershem, crossly. " I want quiet. I'll go off 
somewhere." 

Kyle laughed softly. " The city editor's lot is not an 
easy one," he remarked. But Michael had left the office. 

The possibility of encountering Rachel if he returned to 
his apartments occurred to him, and he went to a restaurant 
for dinner. Then, with a feeling that New York and the 
tumult of New York maddened him, he took the ferry, buy 
ing a ticket in Jersey City and boarding the first train he 
came upon. Action of any kind was better than inertia, 
and to be rushing to hell preferable to standing still. 

He settled himself, throwing his overcoat upon the seat 
facing him, and surveying with an angry glance his fellow- 
passengers. Before the train pulled out from the station he 
was thrown in a nervous rage by the sounds without by 
the hurry in the station-yard, by the equanimity of the por 
ters, and by the steam from an engine upon the track be 
side him. A frail lady carrying a milliner's box took the 
section in front of him, and he felt an instantaneous dislike 
for her, for the bundles beside her, and for the crimps of 
her hair. A stout gentleman, entering from the rear, paused 
beside him to remove a silk hat and don a travelling-cap, 
and he disliked the stout gentleman even more than he had 
disliked the frail lady. At the end of the car a baby cried, 
and he felt that he disliked the baby most of all. 

Then with a jerk that irritated him the train started. 
The relief of motion was so great that for a moment the 
strain seemed lifted. 

An agent passed with an armful of books. He took the 






THE DESCENDANT 233 

first that was handed him, running the leaves idly through 
his ringers. It was Mr. Chambers's King in Yellow, and the 
head-lines caught his eye, conveying an impression without 
an idea : " The Repairer of Reputations." Why should not 
reputations be repaired? "The Yellow Sign." Why yel 
low ? And then " The Studio " staggered him with the sud 
denness of a blow. From the page before him, suggested by 
the words, the familiar room dawned gradually : the glow of 
the fire in the grate, the faded carpet upon the floor, the 
Eastern pottery in one corner, the pictures on the wall, the 
plaster casts above the door, the marble statue of " Hope " 
upon a little table, the bust of Michael Angelo upon her 
desk, the hangings at the windows, the paints, the brushes, 
the canvases all the objects upon which she had im 
pressed her vivid personality. The recollection was not 
pleasant ; it was by a mechanical predominance of memory 
over will that it prevailed. 

Striving to banish the real by the ideal, he followed the 
page upon which his eye had fallen : 
" He said : * For whom do you wait ?' " 
" And I answered : ' When she comes I shall know her.' " 
He threw the book aside. For whom did he wait ? Then 
" I am a man," he said, "and I will face it." 
What it was that he thus determined to confront he did 
not know. To himself he admitted no possible reason for 
Rachel's decision. He accepted it mentally, as he had ac 
cepted it the evening before, viewing the facts of his life 
through a discolored veil. 

The flickering lights of the train reflected upon the win 
dow-pane dazzled him, the swaying motion seemed the re 
sult of intoxication. He stared into the obscurity with un 
seeing eyes. The landscape stretched in a sombre weird- 
ness that was as a triumph of the supernatural. A dim 
line of pearl-colored clouds in the distance suggested a pos 
sible horizon to the blackness blackness broken only by 
shrouded outlines of leafless trees and barbed-wire fences, 
speeding rapidly past, their places being as rapidly refilled. 



234 THE DESCENDANT 

He brushed the frown from his brow with a single gesture 
of his hand. Desire had so long guided him in the guise 
of reason that it was no great difficulty to follow where it 
led, deeming himself secure. It was as if his whole being 
sprang forward, drawn by some magnetic force, seeking, 
however dimly, a loadstar in the distance. What that load 
star signified he dared not question. He even put its ex 
istence angrily aside ; and yet, ignore it as he would, a calm 
presence shone as through a nebulous vista, far beyond the 
tumult of the present, and ignore it still more doggedly 
that presence was Anna Allard. 

The severe recoil from the sinking reefs of his fanaticism 
served as an impetus which impelled him towards conven 
tions. His nature strained towards that decent ambition 
of decent people respectability. Love and notoriety were 
his for the asking, but not honor and Anna Allard. 

Beyond the difficulties investing the path that led to the 
accomplishment of his desire rose the objects desired, the 
more alluring to his combative nature because unattainable. 
And yet Why unattainable ? Only yesterday he had 
noticed the altered looks bent upon him. Only yesterday 
his hand had been grasped by a man whom he had long 
held as an opponent an apostle of respectability. It had 
been a new experience and a pleasurable one. Now that 
his mind was purged from passion, he could look upon men 
as they were, not as his diseased imagination had distorted 
them. He saw that in his old enmity against the world he 
had pursued a course devoid of policy. 

To get the best that the world can give and hold it 
grudgingly is a surer revenge than squandering one's birth 
right of ability in the waging of a fruitless war. It was not 
that he had grown fonder of the world or of those men 
who called themselves his brothers, but that he realized 
that the revolt of the one against the many is an ineffectual 
revolt ; that to take all life can offer is wiser than offering 
one's self a victim upon the sacrificial altar of conventions. 

Yes ; he wanted the opportunities that men open only to 



THE DESCENDANT 



235 



men who are like themselves. He wanted his reputation 
repaired. What an excellent thing it was that one had 
the power to repair one's reputation ! In a flash he re 
membered the appointment of which Driscoll had spoken. 
He knew that a word from Driscoll would procure it, and 
he also knew how gladly Driscoll would speak that word. 
Driscoll ! Why was it that the name of the man whose es 
teem he most coveted was linked in his mind to the name 
of the woman who he now knew had hindered his career ? 
Why was it that in facing Driscoll he must face Rachel 
also ? Were they in league against him ? Was Driscoll 
that some one whose existence she had not denied ? Then 
even to his prejudiced eyes the subterfuge showed too weak 
to stand. Absurdity was bald upon the face of it. 

He ground his teeth as one in torture. What was it that 
haunted him ? Without was the blackness of night, within 
the glare of swinging lamps. 

What was it ? Passionately he strove to collect himself, 
but that something that intangible something, for which 
he had no name and no acknowledgment rose from the 
chaos of thought and confronted him. All the accumulat 
ed experience of years, the lingering effects of which acted 
as his conscience, grouped themselves one by one about 
him. His sense of gratitude, which served him for a sense 
of duty, awoke. All the little kindnesses that men had 
done unto him and forgotten were resurrected from the 
dust in which they had lain, grouping about a light and 
gracious vision that glimmered in the night without. 

His nature still strained onward through that pale vista 
leading ahead, but something which fettered him like a 
chain held him back ; and that chain was formed by links 
of the little kindnesses of men. 

In the chain came the farmer in his rusty suit of jeans, 
turning to look at him with his watery eyes, and passing 
him the supper which he had saved from his own. Why 
did that link him to Rachel ? 

The minister, with his great nose and short chin ; the 



236 THE DESCENDANT 

books which he had loaned him ; the seventeen cents jin 
gling in his pocket, as he, a little outcast, darted along the 
dusty road that evening ; his very enjoyment of that circus 
why did that link him to Rachel ? 

The woman who had held his head that night in the pub 
lic park, the softened look in her eyes as she chafed his 
forehead, the dime that she had slipped into his hand why 
did that link him to Rachel ? 

And Driscoll? Driscoll, as he sat in his office chair 
looking with cynical eyes upon life ; Driscoll, who had 
stood as a pillar of fire to his mental night why, above 
all, did Driscoll link him to Rachel ? 

Goaded to frenzy, he raised the window, leaning out into 
the night, watching the train as it rounded a curve, speed 
ing with fiery eyes into blackness. A hot air laden with 
cinders blew into his face. 

" Will you kindly lower that window ? I am subject to 
neuralgia." 

The frail lady was speaking. He looked at her blankly, 
and she was forced to repeat her request before he com 
plied. The lady retired into her berth, and soon the cur 
tains were put up along the aisle. 

A man took the seat beside him, turning to follow drow 
sily the movements of the porter. It was the stout gentle 
man with the gray travelling-cap. He folded a single sheet 
of The Herald into a narrow strip, tapping his nose reflect 
ively. " Unusually chilly for this season," he remarked. 

Michael stared at him absently. " It is hot," he replied ; 
"or is it cold?'/ 

The stout gentleman bestowed upon him that pleasant 
smile with which we favor those less gifted than ourselves 
in the matter of intellect. "Well, cold, rather," he respond 
ed, amiably. Then he continued : " We are having trouble 
out West again, I see." 

"Yes," said Michael, turning his dazed eyes to the win 
dow. " A blizzard, was it not ?" 

Another pleasant smile crossed the gentleman's face. " I 



THE DESCENDANT 237 

was alluding to the strike," he answered. " The blizzard 
happened yesterday. We don't take account of yesterday's 
news in Chicago. We take to-day's, and grumble because 
we can't get to-morrow's." 

The gentleman departed to his berth, and Michael put 
up his hand to screen his eyes from the glaring lamps. 
The porter touched him upon the arm. " I shall sit up," 
he said, surlily. 

And in the morning, when, upon reaching Richmond, 
he found himself in time for the returning train, he took 
it. The trip had saved him from insanity, and decided 
nothing. 

That night he spent at a hotel, and the next morning, 
drawn by very indecision, he returned to his rooms. On 
the way he passed Rachel's studio, and from a sudden im 
pulse knocked at the door. There was no answer. Open 
ing it, he was startled by blank walls; the firelight, the 
hangings, the canvases, the casts, the pictures all were 
gone, and Rachel with them. In the haste with which she 

O " 

had deserted her accustomed spot he read a feverish shrink 
ing from himself; in the bare wall and the sacrilegious 
sacking of this her temple he saw the overthrow of those 
passionate divinities of the past. It was as one who enters 
a cathedral that has been suffused with the purple mysti 
cism of mediaeval ages to find it naked to the cold, raw 
light of modern thought. The last shred of romanticism, 
draping the altar before which he had knelt, was swept 
.aside. Rachel's spirit, that light, elusive essence of mod 
ernism, the outcome of an effete civilization, crumbling to 
dust upon the soil from which she, an untranslatable mixt 
ure of the past and the future, had sprung, had escaped as 
a vapor from the place thereof. 

In an agonizing perplexity he left, going to his office. 
There he found disorder and excitement. Mr. Mushington, 
the man of money, awaited him. He had a complaint to 
lodge, and he lodged it with emphasis. 

" The paper is going down," he said. " There is a mad- 



238 THE DESCENDANT 

ness about the editorials which amounts to insanity. Can 
you explain it, sir ?" 

Akershem looked into his red and bloated face with in 
solent eyes. 

" I cannot," he answered. It was his first revolt from 
the service of Mammon. 

"Then, sir, you know precious little about your busi 
ness !" 

In sudden fury the Gordian knot was severed. 

" And will know still less about it in future. Expect my 
resignation." 

He would let this infernal nonsense go. He was sick of 
fanaticism and women. By one stroke he had cut himself 
adrift from his old life, ridding himself forever of the past 
and of the present. Only the future remained. 

He remembered Driscoll and the appointment. That 
was his chance, and he would make it good. 

As he rushed from the office a group of reporters, as 
sembled about the door, drew back. 

"What's up with Akershem?" asked one. "He's as 
mad as a March hare." 

The sleeplessness, the perplexity, had fed upon him, pro 
ducing an agony that was almost insanity. He felt his 
blood coursing like fire through his veins, and a dull pain 
started at the base of his brain. Lights flickered and 
danced before his eyes. 

The primitive lawlessness of his nature, aggravated by 
the swaddling-bands of the hot-bed of civilization, rose in 
a tempestuous desire to assert itself. Conventions which, 
acting like a moral strait-jacket, curb the normal man, in 
flame the abnormal. But conventions are created and 
stamped with the Divine signature, not for the one, but for 
the many. 

He entered a bar-room, drinking a glass of brandy, but 
it failed to drive the lights away. It was as if his eyeballs 
were on fire. 

With an impetuous haste he rushed to Driscoll's room, 



THE DESCENDANT 239 

and found that gentleman sitting before the fire, a bottle of 
brandy at his hand and misery upon his face. 

Seeing Akershem, he exclaimed : " The very man ! Be 
hold me in the clutches of the devil. He is sawing every 
bone in my right side to bits. I leave for Florida to-day." 

Akershem took no notice. " Look here, Driscoll," he 
said, excitedly, "I have resigned from The Iconoclast. I 
want that credential for Splicer." 

Driscoll looked at him inquiringly. Then, without speak 
ing, he rose and limped to his desk. As he put his right 
foot to the floor his brow contracted with pain. " It is a 
temptation never to rise," he remarked, " and having risen, 
it is an equal temptation never to sit." With pen in hand 
he paused. " It's all right about the place, Shem," he said. 
"But" he hesitated a moment "Shem, this is a serious 
affair more serious for you than for most men. You see, 
you must square up all your accounts. You can hardly re 
adjust your political views until you have made reparation 
for your discarded social ones." 

Michael flinched. " Those have readjusted themselves," 
he replied, stolidly. 

Over Driscoll's face a warm light broke ; a flash of relief 
brightened his eyes. " That's right !" he exclaimed, hearti 
ly. " I expected it of you, old fellow. So that explains 
why I found Miss Gavin's studio deserted when I called 
there yesterday. Where are you staying ?" 

A ramifying humiliation shot through Michael's frame. 
It was like the application of an electric wire to raw flesh. 
The sensation was so strange that it half startled him. 
Never in his life had he felt this slow sense of rising shame 
that he felt before Driscoll the man who believed in him. 
A red flush mounted to his brow. Then, with desperate 
resolve, he raised his eyes. "I cannot tell where Miss 
Gavin is," he answered, " because I do not know." 

The keenness of Driscoll's glance made him wince 
sharply. "Why, what does it mean ?" 

Michael laughed ; it was a harsh laugh, which grated 



240 THE DESCENDANT 

from lack of humor. Instinctively he realized the suspicion 
in Driscoll's mind, and it angered him. " It means," he 
retorted, fiercely, " that she, like the world, has weighed me 
in the balance and found me wanting." 

A flash of perplexity shot from Driscoll's eyes. " That 
she might have done so to her advantage, I admit," he said ; 
" that she has done so, I refuse to believe." 

Akershem flushed hotly. He was exhausted, and the 
lights flickered before his eyes. " Then get her to explain," 
he broke in, passionately, "for I am sick of the whole con 
founded thing." 

" But explain you shall. If there is a grain of manliness 
left in you you will make good the debt you owe her. 
Good God, man ! do you know that she has sacrificed more 
for you than your salvation is worth ?" 

The blinking of Michael's lids grew faster and a yellow 
flame shot from his eyes. His face was gray, and upon 
his brow that purple vein leaped forth like the brand of 
Cain. 

" Do I need you to tell me that ?" he thundered. " I tell 
you I know nothing of her and her vagaries nothing !" 

Driscoll's voice was low and distinct, cutting the passion- 
ladened air like steel. " This," he said, " is a fitting climax 
to your conduct of late. Would a man who had acquired 
an instinct of honor owe to one woman the debt that you 
owed, and turn from her to follow like a spaniel at the heels 
of another? Perhaps I shall hear of your engagement in 
that quarter," he added, with untempered irony. 

Michael was quivering from head to foot. " I love where 
I choose, and I marry where I choose !" he exclaimed, 
hotly. 

And then Driscoll turned upon him. " I had thought 
you an honest fanatic," he said, " but now I know you are 
a damned scoundrel !" 

Akershem shivered from the white-heat within him. The 
lights in the air before him flamed from blue to green and 
from green to scarlet. His eyes flickered like rusty iron 



THE DESCENDANT 



241 



through which a red-hot fire is passing. " I would kill an 
other man for that !" His voice was choked and muffled. 

Driscoll laughed sarcastically. Then, with a quick return 
of his old manner, he took up his pen. As he did so he 
flinched from a twinge of pain. " Hold on, if you please," 
he called, for Michael had reached the door. " Allow me 
to give you this," he continued, with iy courtesy, " and, be 
lieve me, it will give me great pleasure to use my influence, 
now and always, for the advancement of your business in 
terests." 

Michael crushed the paper in his hand convulsively. 
Then he threw it from him. He wished that it had been 
dynamite, that it might explode, blowing Driscoll, himself, 
and the room to atoms. " Take that for your influence !" 
he exclaimed. 

As he stood there in his passionate defiance something 
of the old Michael whom Driscoll had first known and 
loved shone in him, and the fascination which his dominant 
nature exerted over all who loved him cast a shadowy spell 
over John Driscoll again. He softened suddenly. " Shem," 
he said, with a gesture that was half appealing, " I would 
have forgiven you anything else." 

And " Damn your forgiveness !" cried Michael, as he 
rushed out. 

The rage within him was so great that it stifled him, and 
he put up his hand to loosen his collar. A terrible ringing 
began in his ears. Every bell in New York seemed to burst 
upon him with an infernal din, ringing him out of the city. 

He rushed on, almost oblivious of his way. He saw 
that he walked upon bricks and they burned his feet. He 
saw that people were passing about him, and he longed to 
fall upon them, one and all, to do some terrible damage to 
mankind or to himself. A newsboy held a paper towards 
him and he pushed it aside with an oath. A tiny child 
stumbled and fell at his feet, and he strode over it and 
went upon his way. 

As he ascended the stairs leading to his office an adver- 

16 



242 THE DESCENDANT 

tising agent passed him, and he bit his tongue to keep back 
a volley of curses. Upon the landing a young lawyer, who 
had an office across the hall, was standing, a huge volume 
under his arm, and Michael put him aside as he would have 
put a child. 

Entering his office, he slammed the door violently. When 
he saw that he was not alone, that Kyle sat at his desk, he 
attacked him vehemently. " Can I never have my room to 
myself ?" he demanded. And Kyle turned upon him, and 
he saw that his rage was equal to his own. 

Kyle left the desk, and Akershem crossed over and stood 
beside it. They regarded each other in silence, as beasts 
awaiting a spring. Michael was breathing so heavily that the 
labored sound fell harshly upon the stillness of the room. 

Kyle spoke first " So this is the end of your princi 
ples ?" he sneered, with a snap of his fingers. 

Akershem clinched his hand with such force that the 
nails grew purple. A fleck of foam whitened his lips. 
" Confound you !" he retorted, " what is it to you ?" 

" Did you strike a good bargain ?" Kyle's voice rose 
jeeringly. " How much was your honor worth ?" 

With one hand Akershem opened a drawer, closing upon 
something. The other he stretched out passionately, as if 
warding off Kyle. 

" Take care, Kyle !" he shouted, hoarsely 4 ' take care !" 

" You blackguard ! Can't you name your price ?" 

There was a sudden flash as of lightning; one report 
that rang out sharply upon the silence; a tiny cloud of 
smoke wreathing heavenward like the breath of a prayer. 

" Oh !" cried Kyle, sharply. He coughed a half-choked 
cough ; a clot of blood rose to his lips, oozing slowly down 
upon his shirt, and from his shirt to the floor drip, drip, 
drip. He reached out, clutching at emptiness, and fell 
heavily forward. 

Akershem threw the revolver from him. It struck the 
opposite wall with a dull clank. Then he knelt beside Kyle, 
feeling, with white, nerveless fingers, for his heart. 



THE DESCENDANT 243 

" Kyle ! Kyle !" he called. " Speak ! You aren't hurt ! 
It can't be ! Speak ! Call me a blackguard anything !" 

Kyle's eyes stared at him blankly, barren of all reproach ; 
his hand fell limp and relaxed at his side. 

In his agony Michael rose, stretching out groping, ago 
nized fingers, clutching, as Kyle had clutched, at emptiness. 
" Oh, my God !" he cried. 

There was a stir at the door ; in a moment it opened, 
and when his eyes had cleared a group surrounded him. 
They surveyed him curiously. 

Suddenly a man coming in pushed them aside. " What 
is it ?" he cried. " What does it mean ?" 

The lawyer with the volume under his arm turned quick 
ly. " Mean ?" he answered, with professional exactness. 
" Why, it means manslaughter." 






CHAPTER IV 

THERE was noise and confusion in the depot. A Presi 
dential candidate, after having successfully instilled into 
the ears of the North the fact of his absolute loyalty to that 
section, was journeying South for the purpose of convinc 
ing the voters below Mason and Dixon's line of the exact 
opposite. As he strolled along the platform frantic cheers 
arose from the rabble assembled. Above this jubilant ex 
pression of a nation's confidence sounded the mocking 
whistle of out-going trains, and the shouting of station- 
hands as they succeeded in demolishing a piece of heavy 
baggage. 

A gentleman standing upon the outskirts of the throng 
turned to wink at his companion. "Touching tribute of 
public favor," he remarked; then apologized to some one, 
who, in leaving the waiting-room, had stumbled against 
him, thereby knocking him breathless. " Pardon me for 
existing " he began, when all irony fled. " John Driscoll, 
as I'm alive !" he exclaimed. " What ! Seek you the clime 
of eternal sunshine ?" 

Halting suddenly, Driscoll recognized the speaker and 
smiled. He looked ill and worn, and acute physical pain 
had sharpened his features. As he walked he limped 
slightly. 

" You are looking badly, man," continued the first gentle 
man. 

Without replying Driscoll tossed his grip to a porter. 
" Florida Special," he said. " Section six. Look sharp !" 
Then he smiled again. " You see, it's this plagued rheu 
matism," he explained. " I am all but insane ! If I can't 
cut this eternal civilization my mind won't be worth a con- 



THE DESCENDANT 245 

tinental. As long as your bones aren't crumbling you can 
put up with it, but the devil and civilization at one dose 
will prepare any man for bedlam." 

" It is annoying," commented the second gentleman, 
motioning to the excited crowd. "Witness some of the 
faults of our nervous age. Now civilization is " 

" Tommy-rot !" interrupted Driscoll, crossly. " But you 
can't get rid of it," he complained, irritably. " I've tried 
every spot upon the known world. Even Greenland has 
its explorers ; and as for Africa, by Jove ! I settled in a jun 
gle once, when who should come along but a missionary 
who wanted to convert the apes. And Florida ! why, when 
I bought my place near Key West there wasn't a man in 
shooting distance, and now, mind you, a German has put 
up a cottage across from me with green window-blinds. Of 
all the abominations of civilization there is not one that I 
abhor so utterly as green window-blinds." 

" But you return to them." 

" Not I ! I am going to buy a little island to myself 
one of those small ones, you know, off Jamaica and there 
I'm going to settle, and I'll shoot the first thing in clothes 
that sets foot upon it " 

" Hello!" called a man from behind; " that's Mr. Driscoll, 
isn't it ? I say, John, this is a bad thing about Akershem." 

Driscoll scowled silently. 

" Why, what has he done now ?" demanded the first gen 
tleman. " I thought he had quieted down of late." 

" The mischief ! Why, there's been a row at The Icono 
clast. Something between Akershem and what's his name, 
that Irish fellow?" 

Driscoll started. "What is it?" he demanded. "Who 
is it ? When did it happen ?" 

" They quarrelled something about the paper, they say 
and Akershem shot him down. Shot him in cold " 

"Here, porter!" called Driscoll, excitedly, "stop my bag 
gage ; it can't go ! Confound it, let it go if it wants to !" 
And he rushed off. 



246 THE DESCENDANT 

At the door some one stopped him inquiringly. " What's 
wrong ?" 

" Oh, Akershem ! He's made a fool of himself at last." 
And he passed on. 

" That's a weakness of DriscolPs that I can't understand," 
remarked the first gentleman, with a shrug of his shoulders. 

" Nor I," agreed the second. " I always said Akershem 
would come to the gallows. It's no surprise to me." 

" He was always such a such a cad, you know," added 
the third. 

In John Driscoll's mind just then there was only room 
for self-reproach. It seemed to him that his own impetu 
osity had been the cause of Akershem's overthrow. Know 
ing Michael's undisciplined nature and his own disciplined 
one, he told himself that he was a fool to judge him as he 
judged himself or any other man. As the result of con 
flicting circumstances he saw that Michael was but a vic 
tim to disregarded but controlling laws laws that remain 
ignored for generations, and recoil upon the heads of the 
children of children. Now that his anger had cooled he 
saw in him not the man revolting against the system, but 
the abnormal development revolting against the normal. 
He beheld in him an expression of the old savage type, 
beaten out by civilization, and yet recurring here and there 
in the history of the race, to wage the old savage war 
against society. And he reproached himself, remembering 
Michael as he had seen him last, his nature aroused in all 
its primitive ferocity ; the seething passion which he, John 
Driscoll, had laughed at because he could not understand. 
It seemed to him that had he reached forth and drawn him 
back, had he ventured one appeal to that better nature 
which was overthrown and vanquished, this tragedy might 
have been averted. 

He, the cynic ; he, the clear-headed scientist, had been 
dolt enough to ignore the force of that unreasoning violence 
because the force was opposed to his own. Dolt ! Idiot ! 

And now, when the key turned in the lock and he stood 






THE DESCENDANT 247 

face to face with Akershem, he felt constrained from very 
strength of feeling. 

Michael, hearing the opening door, turned from the win 
dow of his cell and faced him. The daylight sifting through 
the bars showed the intensity that hate and wretchedness 
had graven upon his face. 

" Shem !" 

He came slowly forward, and for a moment they stood 
with locked hands. 

" Driscoll ! so it is you !" 

Driscoll felt something choke in his throat ; he coughed. 
" Shem, old man," he repeated, and it was all that he could 
say. There was so much to feel and so little to express. 

Akershem turned from him as if avoiding an expression 
of sympathy. He walked restlessly towards the door and 
restlessly back again. " So you have heard ?" he said. 

"Yes." 

He went on rapidly. He looked feverish, his face was 
flushed, and there was suppressed excitement in his voice; 
his eyes emitted a nervous glare. " To think that it was 
Kyle!" he said. "If it had been some one else I don't 
think I should have been so cut up; but Kyle of all men. 
Why wasn't it Mr. Mushington ? Why wasn't it that beast 
Van Houne ? Why was it obliged to be anybody ? I never 
hurt anything in my life. I always hated pain. I could 
not see a chicken-fight without getting sick. Why did I 
do it ? Oh, I was mad mad ! And yet if I was mad, why 
do I remember it so distinctly ? I see him as he stood 
there. I see him clutch out. I see the blood that he 
coughed up, oozing upon his shirt. I see him as he lay 
there dead stone-dead." 

Driscoll groaned. " Shem," he reasoned, " it was in self- 
defence. Stop and remember. Surely he would have 
struck you." 

Michael threw back his head impatiently. The fever in 
his face deepened. 

" No ; he only spoke. I remember it well. He held out 



248 THE DESCENDANT 

his hand, but it was his gesture, and I knew it. He was 
always dramatic, you know. I tell you he was right ; he 
knew me better than I knew myself " 

" But he raised his hand. Think ; your freedom depends 
upon it. He came towards you, he raised his hand." 

" It was a gesture, I tell you, and I knew it. Am I a 
fool ? Do you want to make a liar of me as well as a mur 
derer? Good God!" 

Driscoll looked into his excited face and grew angry. 
Did Akershem realize that he was ruining himself ? Was 
he mad? He felt an impulse to kick somebody Aker 
shem or himself. Why, after all, should he hold himself 
responsible for Michael for his love affairs and his crimes ? 
What had he to do with it ? 

Akershem was silent, his gaze bent upon the floor. He 
was wellnigh delirious, and Driscoll, seeing it, was softened. 

Suddenly Akershem spoke. " Poor Kyle," he said. 

A twinge of rheumatism caused Driscoll to flinch sharp 
ly. The physical pain irritated him. He was provoked by 
Akershem's obstinacy and his own concern. 

"Do you know," continued Akershem, "that the only 
thing I ever killed in my life was a rabbit ? I murdered a 
rabbit once shot it just as I shot Kyle, in cold blood. I 
did it for pure devilment for the pleasure of it. I was a 
fiend then, as I was a fiend yesterday. I wanted blood. 
And since I have been sitting here and trying to think of 
Kyle, I can't believe it. It seems to me that I am a boy 
and that it is a rabbit. I see it as clearly as I saw it then 
the pasture, the sunrise, and the rabbit in the road. I 
see it all alive, and then I hear the cry it gave ; I see the 
blood on its mouth, and the life has gone out. It is that 
horrible feeling of having crushed out life. Why is it that 
I can't get that rabbit out of my head ? It was Kyle 
Kyle Kyle. And I was not mad. I was only a devil." 

" For God's sake, Shem, be quiet ! If money and influ 
ence are worth anything you shall be free, but you must 
help us." 



THE DESCENDANT 



249 



But Akershem paid no heed ; he had fallen into a torpor, 
and was gazing at the bare walls. 

" Unless the New York lawyers are bigger fools, or a New 
York jury honester men than those of any other spot, we 
will get you off," added Driscoll. Afterwards he wondered 
why Kyle's death had seemed such a small matter in com 
parison with Akershem's liberty, and could not say. 

On his way out Semple overtook him, and his sympa 
thetic utterances increased DriscolPs ill -humor. He was 
disgusted with the world, with Semple, with Akershem, with 
himself. This infernal aching in his limbs would it never 
leave off ? 

" Our counsel," said Semple, with accustomed optimism, 
" is the best in New York. Akershem will be backed by 
wealth and influence, two powers which count. If the 
worst comes to the worst, we must remember that justice is 
salable. But I wish you'd reason with him, Mr. Driscoll, 
when he grows quieter. It is out of all question, the stand 
that he takes. Public opinion was never on his side, and 
he can't afford to trifle with it. He'll have to fight preju 
dices enough without adding to them." 

A twinge again. " Hang it all !" broke in Driscoll, irri 
tably. "Haven't I reasoned with him until I haven't a 
grain left for my own use? After getting us into this con 
founded mess, Akershem sits up and talks his rot. He 
knows it will depend upon us to get him out." 

" It is unfortunate," admitted Semple, his jovial brow 
clouding. " He has been reckless, far too reckless. I 
feared evil." 

" It is a pity you didn't fear it a little sooner ; then you 
might have refrained from instilling your nonsense into him. 
He has only lived out the views you play with. Good- 
evening." 

Turning a corner he disappeared, leaving Semple trans 
fixed upon the sidewalk. 

Between physical and mental pain Driscoll was wellnigh 
exhausted. He was tired of humanity in general and 



250 THE DESCENDANT 

Hedley Semple in particular. He wanted only to be alone 
and to think. As he opened his door a slight sound from 
the inside caused him to frown blackly. " More fools," he 
muttered. 

Then he entered, and Rachel Gavin rose and came 
towards him. She had been sitting before the fire, her 
brow resting upon her gloved hand, and at his entrance 
had risen hurriedly, her muff falling to the floor. Despite 
the pain in her eyes her whole figure was so light and 
blooming so vitally alive that the contrast between it and 
the jaded man whom he had left in his cell jarred Driscoll 
painfully. He felt that Rachel and he were at the bottom 
of the whole tragedy. "Can't you, at least, keep out of 
this ?" he demanded. 

Rachel stopped suddenly, a slight, startled figure, before 
him. Even then he noticed that there was an added dig 
nity in her presence the dignity of grief. " Oh, you must 
help me !" she cried. " You don't you can't know what 
it means!" 

He felt goaded and harassed. The agony in his arm as 
he lifted it turned him white. But for these two he would 
have left this climate and have found relief. The knowl 
edge that for Rachel's sake he had put all the passion of 
his nature into that last interview the interview that had 
driven Michael to his ruin hardened him. " My ignorance 
of your meaning I confess," he said, ironically. " As to 
what you are driving at, I suppose it concerns Aker- 
shem." 

She grew white ; the terror in her eyes was appealing. 
" Tell me," she pleaded, " how you left him ?" 

" In excellent health. You can hardly expect his spirits 
to be above zero ; ours are not." 

" But you must help me. I must see him. Won't you 
take me ?" 

He eyed her with irritated displeasure. " Are you sure 
that he would wish to see you ?" he asked, and felt dully the 
cruelty of his speech. 



THE DESCENDANT 251 

She drew back, shivering slightly as one in pain. From 
her face all trace of color had flown. " That that is not 
the question," she faltered. 

And then in desperation he spoke, knowing that he alone 
had the power to save the few shreds that remained of a 
reputation that had once been as white as driven snow, and 
that for her at least Akershem would not be worth the sac 
rifice. 

"We would go together, you and I," he said, mock 
ingly. "The world has a sense of humor, and we should 
afford it an opportunity for gratifying it. It would say 
that we were beginning to console each other, you 
and I." 

Some demon seemed urging him on. Again she shivered, 
hiding her face in her hands, and again he felt the brutality 
of his words. 

When she looked up it was with fresh resolve. Her hat 
had slipped aside, and he saw the anguish upon her face. 
"But but you can't understand. It is my fault," she 
pleaded, the tear-drops falling from her eyes upon her 
gloved hands "it is my fault! Oh, how can I bear it!" 
The last was a cry of agony, wrung from her by the mem 
ory of his words. He looked at her, and his eyes soft 
ened. " You cannot judge him, nor can I," she said, and 
his heart hardened. How dare she seek to palliate Mi 
chael's guilt to him ! " He is all impulse all emotion. 
We" 

"Yes, you and I are without feeling," he assented, in grim 
irony. 

" Oh, don't ! don't !" she cried, despairingly. " Pity me ! 
at least pity me !" 

" Rachel !" 

" I have made so many mistakes," she sobbed, " I have 
done so much harm. I have ruined him whom I loved. 
My purest motive has been at fault. But if you knew all 
you would have mercy !" 

" Rachel, don't mind me. Can't you see that I don't 



252 THE DESCENDANT 

mean it ? I only seek to spare you to spare you a useless 
sacrifice !" 

" Useless !" 

"He thinks only of himself and his his fault. If you 
went to him the whole world would condemn you. It would 
spoil all chances of your future life, and " 

" What is that to me ? What do I care for my life ?" 

" And not help him." 

But but I must go !" 

" He has not mentioned you." 

" I must see him !" 

" He does not think of you." 

She looked at him, her hands clasped convulsively. 
" Why why are you so cruel ?" she asked. 

The smile that he bent upon her was half sad, half cyni 
cal. " Perhaps I have a few sensations, after all," he re 
plied, " despite your previous assertion." 

She turned from him hopelessly, then back again. " If 
if he asks for me, will you take me ?" she asked. 

He looked down upon her and held out his hand. 
"Yes," he said. 

She went out silently, but in a moment came back. Her 
eyes, as she looked at him, were luminous. " Forgive me !" 
she said. " You are a far far better friend to him than I 
have been." 

" Rachel !" He cried the name sharply. She held out 
her hands and he took them in his own. 

"You made him," she said, with a shadow of her old 
radiant smile, " and I have unmade him." 

For Rachel yesterday he could have killed Michael ; to 
Rachel to-day he could speak no word. 

" Good-bye," she said, and passed out. 

Driscoll stood looking after her. He saw her muff lying 
upon the floor where she had left it, and he calculated the 
amount of agony that it would cost to stoop and pick it up. 
The calculation overbalanced his possible powers of endur 
ance, and he decided to let it lie. Then he turned slowly 



THE DESCENDANT 253 

around. A tea-table stood beside him, and for a moment 
his eyes rested upon the sugar-bowl of Crown Derby. 
Then with a deliberate gesture he lifted it and hurled it at 
the opposite wall. It fell with a crash. 
" Damn everybody !" he said. 



CHAPTER V 

MICHAEL sat in his cell. A single ray of white light en 
tering from above fell across his bowed head, across the 
table upon which his arm rested, across the cold and un- 
carpeted floor. Upon the table before him lay a pile of un 
answered letters, and at one corner a confused heap of tele 
grams ; but he was thinking neither of them nor of their 
senders. Even when the words caught his eye " Sympa 
thy. Wire if I can be of the slightest use " they seemed 
an empty form, devoid of significance. He had sorted the 
letters mechanically, desiring rather to occupy his hands 
than his mind. He was vaguely surprised at the interest 
strangers had shown in the trial and its results. He was 
even annoyed by the tenor of a host of anonymous commu 
nications. Those abnormities half women, half fools 
that had plied him, as they plied the wife-murderer next 
door, with condolence, revolted him. He knew that a print 
of himself in the Sunday World had sufficed to turn some 
of the sentimentality of the feminine portion of mankind in 
his direction, and dully he resented it. Near his hand lay 
a perfumed note with which the nameless sympathizer had 
sent crimson roses, and the odor of the flowers caused him 
a sickening sensation. He had placed them as near the 
door as possible. 

Sensibly the strain of the last few weeks had told upon 
him. His face had grown gray and bloodless, the haggard 
lines accentuated by his heavy hair. The hand resting, re 
laxed and nerveless, upon the table had lost its old vigor 
ous grasp. With his impassioned nature retribution had 
followed swiftly upon crime. 

Suddenly the key turned in the lock. He started with a 



THE DESCENDANT 255 



terror that was childlike in its instinctiveness. As a man 
entered he stared at him blankly, seeing that it was his 
senior counsel, but making no motion of recognition. 

The man came forward and stopped. He coughed dep- 
recatingly. 

" Mr. Akershem." 

Michael looked up inquiringly. 

" Mr. Akershem " he paused to rub his hands with affa 
ble hesitancy "you will understand that, considering the 
prejudices your previous career has inspired in the mind of 
the public, the verdict was not er not unexpected. The 
fact that it was lighter than was generally looked for (he 
had assumed the tone he employed to the jury) is due, we 
believe if you will allow us to say so to our personal in 
terest in the case and the tireless efforts of your friends " 

"Yes," interrupted Michael, "but" 

"As you know, there has been a refusal to set aside the 
verdict." 

Michael returned his gaze with blank regard, and, as the 
lawyer paused, stood crumpling the telegrams between his 
fingers, his lips twitching slightly. " Cowards, they are 
afraid of me !" he muttered, passionately. 

The other rubbed his hands sympathetically. 

" Ah ! ahem !" he began, " believe me, you have my sym 
pathy my deepest sympathy." 

" Ten years !" said Michael, slowly, and he paced rest 
lessly up and down his cell. " Ten years !" he repeated. 

The lawyer cast a glance of professional compassion 
upon him and departed. At the door he stumbled against 
John Driscoll, who was waiting upon the outside. 

" Your zeal is commendable, my dear sir," he remarked, 
and hurried off. 

Driscoll entered the cell, and stood for a moment with 
his eyes upon Michael. Then he came forward, resting 
one hand upon his arm. " Well, old man ?" he said. 

Michael looked at him with nervous intensity. " Ten 
years !" he said, in a half-whisper. " Ten years ! Did you 



256 THE DESCENDANT 

hear what that fool said, Driscoll ? Somehow I did not take 
it in before. Ten years ! Surely there is some mistake. 
Driscoll, can't you inquire if there is not a mistake ?" 

Something stuck in Driscoll's throat ; he shook his head 
without replying. 

" Why, ten years is a lifetime !" continued Michael, breath 
lessly. " I have so much to do, so much to fight for. Take 
ten years away, and there will be nothing left. I have had 
only ten years. It was ten years ago that I came to New 
York and went into your office and demanded work. Do 
you remember ? I was a boy then. I knew as much of 
life as a baby. Since then I have fought hard. I have 
worked like a slave, and for what ? To do manual labor in 
Sing Sing. Good God! I tell you it can't be! I have 
my life to live. What is anything compared to my ambi 
tion ? I tell you " 

" Shem, be quiet, for God's sake !" 

A shudder ran through DriscolPs frame. Something rose 
before his eyes and blinded him. He threw himself into 
Akershem's chair, resting his head upon the table. For 
the first time in his life he could have cried like a child. 

He looked at Michael, standing tall and stalwart before 
him ; he saw the haggard brow, the restless limbs, the 
whole impassioned frame. Over Driscoll a wave of bitter 
ness swept, and at that moment, had it been in his power 
to redeem that blasted life, he could have struck Akershem 
dead at his feet. The energetic brow, the flaming eyes, 
the whole throbbing vitality of the man ! Was this their 
end? O God, the pity of it! In a flash Michael's life 
passed before him as vivid as the writing on the wall. The 
good which weighed in the balance with the evil of his 
blood had been found wanting. The Nemesis of a broken 
law flamed, a fiery revelation, before his eyes. He saw 
Akershem, fearless and elated, bearing ever upon him the 
stamp of genius ; saw his strong hands fighting the circum 
stances which hemmed him in, and, foiled, still fighting in 
the face of overwhelming odds. He saw Michael as he 



THE DESCENDANT 257 

had first appeared to him, awing him cynic as he was 
by that vital and dominant nature ; saw him standing with 
upraised hand against an opposing world, victorious by the 
unconquerable force of his blood, a force which, recoiling 
upon his single head at last, had played into the hands of 
the Philistines. 

He saw the impress that one man had stamped upon his 
surroundings. He saw himself, satiated with the shams of 
life, cleaving unto the one nature which was fearlessly it 
self, sincere alike in good and evil. The ruined waste that, 
meteor-like, he had wrought in the lives of others blackened 
the sketch of his thought ; Rachel, a sacrifice to that force 
which draws the aberrant body to its allotted orbit ; Kyle, 
a victim to the velocity of the body in its recoil. All the 
terrible penalties that man pays to ari outraged nature, 
these confronted him. And lifting his head he looked at 
Michael Akershem, and his heart bled with the pity of it. 

" Driscoll," said Michael, suddenly. 

Driscoll smiled sadly. " Well ?" he asked. 

" You you have stood by me like a brick." It was the 
first sign of gratitude Michael had shown, and it pained 
Driscoll. 

" Don't, Shem," he pleaded. Then, with ari awkward 
struggle for words, he went on : " You know that I would 
have given my life to spare you. Not that it is worth 
much," he added with a smite, rubbing his ankle ; " pain is 
its essential principle just now. But for rheumatism I'd 
hardly know I was alive." 

Michael stopped before him. " You go to Florida ?" he 
inquired, with but little show of interest. 

"If this confounded thing doesn't go to my heart in 
stead," responded Driscoll. Then his tone changed. " But 
I haven't given up yet, Shem," he added ; "but for the fact 
that several honest men had gotten in the wrong place I'd 
have settled it. As it is, not many weeks shall pass by that 
the Governor doesn't hear from me. He will yield at last 
from sheer exasperation." 



258 THE DESCENDANT 

Akershem shook his head impatiently and continued his 
walk. Then he spoke with an outburst of his old bitter 
ness. Unconsciously his adjustment to conventions had 
failed ; he stood once more at odds with the world. " I am 
fortunate to have one friend," he said. 

Catching a subtle inflection, Driscoll turned quickly. 
" You have many," he answered ; and, " Is there any one in 
particular whom you wish to see ?" 

No answer. 

" Shem, don't let a woman come between us now." 

Akershem smiled. " Nor any man," he added. 

"Perhaps " Driscoll hesitated, but only fora moment; 
then he began again : " Have you thought of Miss Gavin?" 

Michael laughed mirthlessly ; the bitterness of his speech 
stung sharply. " Only that she should congratulate her 
self," he returned. " Her selection of the proper moment 
resembles intuition." 

" You are wrong, man," said Driscoll, gently ; " but but 
do you wish to see her ?" 

A flush rose to Michael's face. With the old passion 
for sympathy was revivified the old passion for Rachel. It 
flickered for an instant and went out. 

" Could I ?" he asked. 

Driscoll rose and limped stiffly over to him. " Shem " 
he laid one hand upon his arm " all the women in America 
could not make me hard on you, but" he caught his 
breath "but is it for love of her? Think what it would 
mean to her. Do you desire her because you love her or 
because she loves you?" He waited patiently, but Aker 
shem did not answer. 

And the next morning as Rachel worked in her studio 
the door opened and Driscoll entered. She started slight 
ly, looking up from the colors she was mixing. Since he 
had last seen her a change had passed over her something 
indefinable, blotting out all vivid tints of her youth. She 
was thinner, and beneath her eyes the purple shadows had 
deepened ; even her lips had lost their scarlet ripeness. 



THE DESCENDANT 259 

Sitting there with a patience which ill became her, toiling 
mechanically for the food which she desired not, she ap 
pealed to him as she had not done in all her past radiance. 

He lifted a paper from the table, examining it idly. It 
was a colored print of Paris fashions, a chromo-like array 
of slim-waisted, large-hipped women promenading upon air. 
He stared at it wonderingly. " What abomination is this ?" 
he inquired. 

Taking it from him, she placed it on the table before her, 
a smile breaking the firm lines of her lips. 

" I shall become quite an authority upon fashions," she 
said, lightly. " Having nothing better to do, I have taken 
to copying designs." 

He looked at her in dismay. " And you do this ?" he 
asked. 

At his horror-struck tones she laughed a little, and then 
went on with her work, her head sinking lower over the 
table. " One must live, you know," she answered. 

" Where is your painting ?" 

" Behind you are the remains," she replied, with a pitiful 
attempt at her old animation. " Somehow it isn't bread and 
meat." Then she added : " I work upon it at odd times. 
Some day I shall get back my old power." 

With the words a sudden flush overspread her face, and 
he saw that the lingering embers of a great ambition were 
still warm. 

He pointed to the fashion-sheet in disgust. "And who 
pays you for that filth ?" he asked. 

"Madame Estelle." 

"The modiste?" 

She nodded. 

" But you loathe it ?" he said. 

"No," she smiled; "far from it. Indeed, I am growing 
rather fond of it; it is so expressionless. I always loved 
colors, and here there are colors and nothing else. My 
painting sickens me ; it is all emotion." 

He glanced at the veiled " Magdalen " and sighed. Then 



260 THE DESCENDANT 

he walked to the fireplace and stood looking into the empty 
grate. He remembered that she disliked steam-heat, and 
the thought of her poverty smote him. That she was mak 
ing a struggle to retain these, her old rooms, to which she 
had returned, he knew at a glance. One cannot let one's 
hand lie idle for a couple of years without paying the price. 

"You see, I am a cabbage," continued Rachel, with a 
humorous smile. " All my animal vitality has become ex 
hausted, and I shall stagnate for the balance of my life. 
When one only eats and sleeps and breathes and loses 
one's combativeness one becomes a plant, and when one 
grows to enjoy it one becomes a cabbage. I used to hate 
cabbages," she added, slowly. 

" Rachel !" She looked up and smiled upon him her 
old bewildering smile. " Is there not some one down South 
to look after you ?" 

An expression of pain crossed her face ; she shook her 
head. " Down there they are all dead," she answered. 
And added, quietly, "And here I am dead." 

He laid his hand upon the back of her chair. " I I am 
a poor party to mother anybody," he said, " but I can't 
leave you like this." 

She smiled again. "It is the only kindness you can do 
me," she answered. 

" But you are so lonely." 

Her lip trembled for an instant and was firm. " You 
can hardly have come to tell me that," she responded. 

" No," he said, " no. I came to tell you that that he 
had rather not see you." 

For a moment her busy hands lay still. She looked up 
at him with dazed eyes that caused him to put out his hand 
in pained protest. Then she took up her knife again. 

"He had rather not?" she repeated, mechanically, and 
went on with her work. 

He stood over her an instant, and then held out his 
hand. " Good-bye !" he said. 

She took it idly. " Good-bye," she echoed. 



THE DESCENDANT 261 

He went to the door, looked back at her, moved a step 
forward, looked back again, and passed out. But as he 
descended the stairs he heard his name called and lingered. 
She stood upon the landing looking after him, her hands 
outstretched. He went up to her, clasping them in his 
own. 

" Little soldier," he said, " the fight is not over." 

Like a flame her old iridescence enveloped her. She 
grew vivid. 

" You must not go until until " her hands closed more 
firmly over his " until I have thanked you for your good 
ness." 

Misunderstanding her, he winced. 

" Akershem is my friend," he replied. " I should have 
been a cad not to stand by him." 

A hot flush rose to her brow; the tears shone in her 
eyes, making them luminous. 

I I did not mean that," she faltered. "I should not 
presume to thank you for your faithfulness to your your 
friends." And she left him. 

When the door had closed upon her he turned slowly 
and descended the stairs, passing from Rachel and from 
Rachel's life. 



CHAPTER VI 

INTO the Academy a flood of sunshine drifted, illumining 
the canvases upon the wall with a golden shimmer dazzling 
to the eye of the beholder. It was opening day, and a sup 
pressed excitement weighted the atmosphere, emanating 
probably from the natural possessors of the illumined can 
vases. Here and there the spring bonnets of the ladies 
showed amidst the sombre-toned gathering like early blos 
soms cleaving brown soil, while the light-hued gowns be 
longing to the wearers of the bonnets lent variegated dashes 
of color to the nondescript assembly. 

In the corners and about the entrances small groups 
clustered, talking in half- whispers, their voices rising in 
frequent interjections. 

"Oh, do find Clara's picture!" cried a girl in brown, 
breaking suddenly away from her companions. " Some 
body please tell me the name of it. She said it was splen 
didly hung." No attention being paid to her, she went 
rapidly on : " Do you know Geoff Lorrilard sold his ' An 
tigone' for nine hundred? He painted it from the same 
model that I am using for 'Cleopatra.' Oh, there is a 
beauty of Bruce Crane's ! Look at it ! The exhibition is 
finer this year than it has ever been, they say. Dupont 
says American art is looking up, and Dupont despises all 
but the French, you know." 

" I hear he has hung a picture which is making a row," 
broke in a young man with a note-book. " The painter is 
unknown ; I am inclined to think it is Dupont himself. It 
savors of the French School decidedly." 

" Dupont could not do anything so strong as that," re 
marked another of the group ; " it is a new hand. That 



THE DESCENDANT 263 

brush has never dabbled in milk-and-water. What! you 
haven't seen it ?" And they passed out. 

An elderly gentleman with a very young lady entered 
suddenly and paused before an effect in blue. 

" Hello !" exclaimed the gentleman, " here's one of Nev- 
ins's." And, glancing up, he caught the eye of that artist 
through a gold-rimmed eye-glass. " How are you, Nevins ?" 
he inquired. " Still producing babies, I see." 

Mr. Nevins sauntered over to them. " Well, yes," he 
admitted ; " but you will notice they are no longer at the 
breast. It has taken me ten years to wean them, and in 
ten more I expect to have them adults." 

The gentleman laughed, and the young lady colored and 
looked hastily for a number in her catalogue. 

" I should think that a grown-up, clothed and in his right 
mind, would be a pleasant novelty," commented the gen 
tleman. " I'm not a baby-fancier myself." 

Mr. Nevins spread out his hands deprecatingly and 
shrugged his shoulders. " Nor I," he protested. " I never 
see a baby off canvas without wanting to smash it. It is 
by severe self-restraint that I keep my hands off my mod 
els. But the public must be gratified, you know, and a 
good half the public are mothers. Babies sell. Nothing 
else does. I have tried landscapes, portraits, figures, nude 
and draped, and I return to the inevitable baby. I bring 
out a baby as regularly as the Season comes." Then he 
smiled broadly. " John Driscoll used to call me the All- 
Father," he added. 

The young lady looked up quickly. " Oh, do tell me 
something about Mr. Driscoll," she said. "We used to be 
such friends, but it has been six no, eight years how 
time does fly ! since he went away." 

"Eight," said Mr. Nevins. "It was shortly after that 
Akershem affair, but he has been back several times since 
then. He has been working to get Akershem out ; the only 
job he has ever undertaken in which I could not wish him 



264 THE DESCENDANT 

" Poor fellow !" sighed the young lady, and was silent. 
Then she held out her hand to an acquaintance. "Why, 
Mrs. Van Dam," she said, " this is a pleasure ! We may 
always count upon Mrs. Van Dam as a patron of true art, 
mayn't we, Mr. Nevins ?" 

Mr. Nevins thought that upon the whole we might, and 
a pale young man in Mrs. Van Dam's train was convinced 
of it. 

Mrs. Van Dam had raised her veil, and was levelling her 
lorgnettes at the canvases within her line of vision. 

"I am with my daughter," she explained. "She has 
lived South since her marriage, you know, but she is so 
fond of art. Cornelia, my dear, I want you to know 
Why, where is Cornelia ?', she added. Cornelia not being 
forthcoming, she went placidly on. " You must come into 
the next room," she said, "and tell me what you think of 
that large painting, ' Mary of Magdala,' It is the success 
of the Season. Dupont exhibits it, you know, and he is 
simply wild about it. So is Mr. McDonough, who is an 
enthusiast over American art. He proposes presenting it 
to the Metropolitan, I hear." 

They passed into the next room, pausing suddenly be 
fore a canvas which hung facing them. At first one noticed 
a deep-toned richness that suggested a Leonardo, and then 
from the perspective of gray and green loomed the Mag 
dalen. There was a boldness in the drawing which might 
have been startling, but was only impressive. In the whole 
strong -limbed figure, of which the mud -stained drapery 
seemed to accentuate the sensuous curves, a living woman 
moved and breathed. In the mire at her feet lay a single 
rose. Above her head a full moon was rising, casting a 
pale -lemon light upon her garments, falling like a halo 
about the head of one scapegoat for the sins of men. 

" The painter is a realist," muttered the pale young man. 
" I don't like realism." 

The young lady rustled her catalogue. "How beauti 
ful," she murmured, " and how strange ! Why, those eyes 



THE DESCENDANT 265 

are marvellous. There is every emotion in them of which 
the human heart is capable every emotion except remorse." 

Then she looked for the name. " Merely 'Mary of Mag- 
dala,' " she said. " But who is the artist ?" 

"That is Dupont's secret," said some one from behind. 
" He is pledged to silence, he says." 

"It would be interesting," remarked Mrs. Van Dam, "to 
know the artist." 

"What! you haven't heard?" cried a new-comer, with an 
air implying the immensity of his own information upon the 
subject. " It is an open secret. Dupont won't tell, but 
he'll hint." 

The young lady interrupted him eagerly. " Why, who is 
it?" she asked. 

" Well, there can be no harm in saying, I suppose, that it 
is a Miss Gavin. You remember she did some fine work 
years ago, but she got under a cloud and was lost sight of." 

"Oh," sighed the young lady, "how brilliantly she has 
reappeared !" 

Mrs. Van Dam put up her lorgnettes and surveyed her 
disapprovingly. " Do you think so ?" she said, in an in 
tended undertone. " For my part, I consider that it is add 
ing impertinence to infamy." 

The young lady colored and looked down. 

" My dear Mrs. Van Dam," reasoned Mr. Nevins, with 
his usual disregard of danger, " remember that the voice of 
this democratic people of ours is the voice of God. When 
it proclaims 'famous' it drowns our 'infamous.'" 

The descendant of the Byrds of Westover turned her 
gaze upon him. 

" One may expect anything of democracies," she said. 

With a deprecatory shrug, Mr. Nevins spread out his 
hands. "But the Voice," he insisted. 

" I agree with Mrs. Van Dam," declared the pale young 
man. " After all, the potent voice is the voice of Society." 

Mr. Nevins's shrug was still more deprecatory. " What ! 
is Society curtailing vice ?" he asked. 



266 THE DESCENDANT 

"Why, mamma" a young matron with the face of an 
angel slipped her arm through Mrs. Van Dam's "Mr. 
Lorrilard is saying that the ' Magdalen ' is Rachel Gavin's. 
Can it be ? How did you hear that Rachel was dead ?" 

Mrs. Van Dam stiffened. " From the best authority," 
she replied, haughtily. 

"But she isn't. It was all a mistake, and just look at 
her work. Why, it is so like Rachel ! It makes one think 
that Christ saw holiness when our blind eyes beheld only 
crime." 

" Why, Cornelia !" 

" From the mouths of babes," remarked Mr. Nevins, in 
an audible aside. 

The young matron turned back as she was drawn away. 
"It is as beautiful as Rachel," she said, "and as brave." 

And in her studio, shut in by four walls from the tumult 
of the outside city, sat Rachel herself. She had grown thin 
and colorless. It was as if the brush of Nature had blotted 
out her bloom with a single stroke as she blotted out the 
colors upon her canvas. The air of close rooms and the 
strain of overwork had destroyed the vividness of her 
youth. She was Rachel still a Rachel that awoke at odd 
moments in laugh and voice that chased across her worn 
face in fleeting gleams, like the gleams from a sun that has 
set. 

" So you tell me that I must go to Paris ?" she said. She 
was speaking to Dupont as he stood beside her, having 
taken the brush from her hand. 

"Leave this dirty work," he answered. "Let Madame 
Estelle and her gowns go to Hades." 

Rachel laughed a little bitterly. " This dirty work," she 
answered, " has fed me when I was hungry and clothed me 
when I was naked. My painting has not done that." 

"It is your fault," he answered. "You have been faith 
less. I tell you your 'Magdalen' will make you make 
you, do you hear ?" 



THE DESCENDANT 267 

" If the making is more satisfactory than Providence's, I 
shall not complain," she answered, with a touch of cynicism. 
Then she smiled at him, the smile radiating across her 
sharpened features. "Dear master," she said, "when one 
has earned one's bread by copying dressmaker's designs, 
with a little wood-engraving thrown in, one feels like eating 
that bread and digesting it without any special saying of 
grace." 

He stamped his foot. " Only a fool or a woman would 
have bartered such a talent for a mess of sour pottage," he 
answered. 

She flushed, and then, rising, faced him. " I am no longer 
young," she said. " I am very tired. Art either maddens 
or wearies me. When it maddens me I do great things 
a 'Magdalen'; when it wearies me I do dirty work. If 
I might only go on copying designs." Then her tone 
changed. " I will do all you wish," she said. 

He looked into her white and wasted face, and beneath 
his gaze a slow flush rose, tingeing her cheeks. 

" I have won you back to art," he said. 

An infusion of vitality seemed to surge through her veins. 

" I will do you honor," she answered. 



CHAPTER VII 

THROUGH the crowd which thronged Broadway at six 
o'clock a man passed. Amidst the congregate mass of mov 
ing atoms his outline was all but imperceptible, presenting 
to an observer from a distant height as indistinct an indi 
viduality as is presented to us by the individual in a writh 
ing army of ants. He was an entity, but, surrounded by a 
host of greater and lesser entities, the fact of his personal 
existence was not conducive to philosophic reflection in 
another than himself. 

There was a sharp edge to the air as biting as a mid 
winter's frost. If one could have swept aside all visual im 
pediments one might have seen an April sunset dyeing the 
broken west, a track left by the sun as he ploughed his 
bloody way across golden furrows. 

Above the city the smoke hovered low in a neutral-toned 
cloud, obscuring what was still day in the open country. 

The crowd in the street moved rapidly, dividing in two 
dark lines that passed in opposite directions. As the man 
walked he pushed aside with a feverish impatience those 
that came within his reach, moving as if indifferent to the 
human stream around him. He stooped slightly, as one 
who is old or in pain or both, sometimes staggering from 
loss of breath consequent upon his haste. 

He was of medium height, with a frame that might once 
have seemed of iron, the skeleton of which still resisted the 
disease that was wasting the flesh away. His features were 
rendered larger than their wont by the hollows of cheek 
and brow, and the skin drawn loosely over them was dry 
and colorless the burned-out fuel of a hectic fire. Upon 
his temples the heavy hair was matted and dashed with 



THE DESCENDANT 269 

gray, and the hand that he raised impatiently to brush aside 
an imaginary lock trembled like the hand of one palsied. 
It was as if a gigantic statue, formed for power and for en 
durance, were making a struggle against some insidious 
enemy feeding upon flesh and blood. Reaching the corner, 
the man paused for a moment, strangling back a fit of 
coughing which broke control at last. For the first time he 
looked up and glanced about him. It was the corner of 
Fourteenth Street, and across the way the words " The 
Iconoclast " stared him in the eyes. He remembered that 
he had stood at this same corner eighteen years ago, and 
had read that sign idly and with ignorance of the part it 
would play in the fulfilling of his life. It was new then, 
and shiny ; now it showed battered and weather-beaten. 
It had breasted the years as he had breasted them. Be 
hind him was the warehouse upon which he had seen the 
notice of "Men Wanted." He remembered its oblong 
shape, the size of the letters, and the effect of the white 
tracing upon the blackboard, and instinctively he felt in his 
pocket for the phial of laudanum. Could that really have 
been eighteen years ago ? Why, it seemed only yesterday. 
He glanced up at the office window of The Iconoclasts city 
editor DriscolPs window it had been then, and he almost 
expected to find those shrewd eyes looking at him from be 
hind closed blinds. The thought made him nervous, and 
he moved a few feet away. 

For the last week, since the hospital doctor had signed 
a certificate that secured him his freedom and he had left 
the prison behind him, he had been consumed with the 
dread of encountering old associations. Driscoll was 
South, he supposed, and he was glad of it. Before facing 
Driscoll again he must face the world and become rein 
stated in his old Championship of liberty. Through his 
wasted limbs his unwasted energy vibrated. He was not 
beaten yet. 

A policeman touched his arm and motioned him not to 
obstruct the crossing. The policeman looked at him as he 



270 THE DESCENDANT 

would have looked at any respectable but obtruding citizen, 
but Michael resented the look, and, with a defiant retort, 
moved onward. He hated those pugilistic protectors of 
the peace. 

For days he had roamed the streets as feverishly as he 
had done in his youth, drawn as by some impelling force 
to his old surroundings, and yet dreading the sight of a 
familiar face, shrinking from the casual glance of the passer 
by. Before he returned to do battle with the world he 
must rally his broken forces, must clothe this protruding 
skeleton with flesh. Freedom and good food would manage 
it, but he must give them time. He remembered the stains 
upon his handkerchief yesterday. Pshaw ! was he the 
man to die from the loss 'of a drop of blood ? There was 
vitality in him yet. 

At Eighteenth Street he turned as from habit, and paused 
as he found himself facing the Templeton. From the first 
floor to the eighth lights shone in the windows, in the very 
rooms that he had once occupied. The sight startled him. 
It was with a certain wonderment that he found the world 
unaltered. He had been in hell for eight years and more, 
and not one laugh the less was heard upon the streets, not 
one smile the less crossed the faces in the crowd, not one 
shadow the more fell over his familiar haunts. It was as 
it had been, and as it would be though he perished. How 
fleeting is the effect that one man produces upon his time ! 
An idol is exalted in the market-place ; it falls, and upon its 
crumbling ruins another is raised towards heaven. For 
men there are many divinities, and for a fallen idol there is 
the mire. 

Upon the sidewalk he loitered, glancing into the cheer 
ful interiors. Vaguely he wondered if these people knew 
that he Michael Akershem stood without. In one, a 
room suffused with lamplight, a mother sat singing to the 
young child upon her breast. The placidity of her ex 
pression annoyed him. He knew that though poverty and 
misery stalked in the night at her door she would not 



THE DESCENDANT 271 

awaken the sleeping child or cease her soothing lullaby. 
In another a woman sat alone. She was lithe and young, 
and something in the curve of her shapely head brought 
Rachel to his mind. In such warm and soft firelight had 
Rachel waited for him in the old days when he was worth 
waiting for. Now Rachel had gone back to her art and 
was doing great things things such as she had always 
meant to do. One evening in the elevated road he had 
heard two artists speaking of her and her future. In his 
embittered mind the praise had inspired an aggrieved jeal 
ousy. She, whom he had loved to his own undoing, was 
gathering her meed of fame, for the crumbs of which he 
was famishing. 

The shapely woman in the firelit room warmed him with 
memory of the time when a woman had thought the world 
well lost for the sake of him. Whatever came to her here 
after, once every vibration of her heart-strings had been 
his his, a homeless vagrant, with his bones crumbling to 
dust. 

An acute pain in his chest caused him to start suddenly. 
He remembered such a pain in that illness two years ago, 
when his breath had been like the agony of travail. Then, 
in the madness of delirium, he had called upon Rachel, and 
called in vain. Well, that was over and done with. 

He turned away from the ruddy interiors and stood upon 
the corner, watching the straggling stream" of passers-by 
a laborer with a tin pail jingling noisily from his hand, a 
woman with crimson roses upon her breast and crimson 
marks upon her cheeks, another woman, a man, a child, a 
man again, a newsboy, a policeman. And then a woman in 
a fur coat passed him, turned suddenly, hesitated, and came 
back. Beneath the small hat her eyes looked out inquir 
ingly ; under her arm she carried a long roll. 

With a tremor he recognized her and drew away. In 
the haggard face he turned from her only a woman's eyes 
could have seen Michael Akershem. He cowered' into the 
shadow, but she came on. 



272 THE DESCENDANT 

" Michael 1" 

Her voice thrilled him, and he put out his hand, warding 
her off. 

" Michael !" 

She had reached him, her light touch was almost upon 
his arm. 

" I am not Michael," he answered, hoarsely. 

But as he lifted his head the electric light fell full upon 
him, and they stood in silence regarding each other. In 
that silence each looked across the years, and saw the past 
and the future drawing as to a point and that point was 
the present. 

She saw pain and misery and wasted strength ; she saw 
a dread of her and yet a need of her, a desire for solitude, 
like the desire of an animal that seeks the covert, and yet 
the longing for a ministering touch ; she saw the hand of 
Death looming above his face, and the sight made her bold, 
as would not the hand of Life. 

He saw a woman from whom youth but not usefulness 
had fallen ; he saw shoulders that had borne strong burdens 
and might bear stronger ; he saw eyes that had looked 
upon life and found it futile, but that burned with his 
image as fervently as they had burned in the heat of the 
passionate past, and looking into them he saw constancy 
made manifest ; he saw the love that after years of wrong 
and wandering may lead us home at last. 

" Michael, I am so glad !" Her hand \vas upon his arm, 
her gaze upon his face. 

" Let me go !" he answered. " Oh, Rachel ! Rachel !" 

Again he strove to strangle that grating cough, but it 
broke loose. 

" No, no," she said, for he would have passed on. " You 
have come to me to be nursed and made quite strong 
again !" She tried to speak lightly, but her voice faltered. 
" Oh, my beloved, is it not so ?" she asked. 

He spoke hoarsely ; his arm trembled from the weight of 
her detaining hand. 



THE DESCENDANT 273 

" It is nothing," he answered, but he no longer withstood 
her ; " it is only a cold it is chronic." 

" I will cure it," she said. A leaping of his pulses that 
was not the leaping of fear stimulated him. At that mo 
ment the memory of the time when Rachel had craved his 
love and it had failed her was blotted out. He remembered 
only the exuberant passion of his youth. 

" Do you care, Rachel ? I am not worth it." 

Still clinging to him, she led him on, talking in those 
light tones which came at will, drawing him from himself 
and to her. 

They entered the Templeton, and, because he shrank 
from the elevator, mounted the stairs. Her voice was clear 
and strong, the result of a nervous tension, warning her 
that to pause would be to break down, to discharge her 
swollen heart. 

" I have been to the baker's," she said, as lightly as if 
they had parted the day before " to the baker's to buy a 
loaf of bread. I have supper in my studio now. I am 
tired of restaurants and French cooking. So, like Old 
Mother Hubbard, I have my little cupboard, to which I re 
sort, and I have also, not a dog, but a cat a nice gray cat." 

His labored breathing caused her to pause for a moment, 
stooping to fasten the lace of her boot. It took some little 
time, and then she resumed her slow ascent, slipping her 
hand through his arm. 

"I have supper all by myself," she continued, "and you 
shall share it you and the cat. I have become quite a 
good cook, as you shall see. My oysters are the pride of 
my life. I haven't any one to appreciate them except, now 
and then, Dupont, because, you see, there isn't a soul here 
now that I care about. The little mother with the twins 
moved out West, and Madame Laroque didn't I tell you ? 
Madame's husband died and left her property in France, 
and his brother came over to see her about it. But Ma 
dame declared that she could not survive the sight of a 
Frenchman, so she locked herself in her room. Oh, it was 

18 



274 THE DESCENDANT 

so funny! There was the brother-in-law besieging and 
Madame relentless. It went on for a couple of weeks, 
when, finally, Madame came down, and one day he met her 
upon the street, and in a week they were married and sailed 
to France." She paused, and the tears rose to her eyes. 

They had reached her landing, and with an energetic 
movement she threw open the door of her studio. 

" Here we are," she said, " and the tea is brewing, and the 
fire burning, and the cat waiting." She drew an arm-chair 
to the hearth-rug, laid his hat and coat aside, and piled a 
heap of downy cushions at his head. Then she took off 
her wrap and set about preparing her supper, talking as she 
might have talked ten years ago. It was all so natural, so 
much as it used to be the room, the firelight, the shaded 
lamp, the casts, the hangings, the canvases that the years 
seemed but shapeless spectres and his agony a dream un 
fulfilled. 

He lay back among the cushions and looked at her, his 
brilliant eyes flaming from between the twitching lids like 
a slow fire consuming his shrunken features. 

Over Rachel herself a radiance that was more than the 
radiance of the dancing firelight had fallen. Excitement 
crimsoned her cheeks, irradiating across brow and lips. In 
her eyes the lustre of her youth shone with its old splen 
dors. All the vivid and evanescent charm that had once 
been hers returned for one fleeting moment to envelop her. 
He looked at her wonderingly. 

"Why, Rachel," he said, and his tone was querulous, 
" you have not changed !" 

She smiled upon him. " No," she answered, simply, "I 
have not changed." 

She brought the little table and placed it before him, 
watching him with anxious eyes as he ate his oysters, and 
pretending to eat, herself. 

The cat left the hearth-rug and leaped upon his knee, 
and he stroked it with a pitiable pleasure in the instinctive 
confidence animals had always felt in him. Broken and 



THE DESCENDANT 275 

ill as he was, the little things which he had disregarded in 
his strength appealed to him in his weakness. Crushed by 
the great things of life, he saw that the little things were good. 

Rachel watched him with enraptured eyes. That buoy 
ant interest in the minutiae of life which had once irritated, 
now soothed him. It was pleasant to be cared for, to have 
some one care whether one ate or went hungry, whether one 
coughed or was silent. He accepted her services apatheti 
cally, feeling not gratitude but contentment. 

When he had finished she pushed the table aside, placed 
the dishes upon a tray in the hall, and, drawing a stool to 
his feet, sat beside him, resting her cheek upon his dry and 
fevered hand. 

He spoke pettishly. " I am a wreck," he said " a broken 
wreck. Look at that wrist ; the muscle is almost through 
the flesh." And he added : " I am a cur that the stones 
of mankind have beaten to death. Yes, I am beaten." 

Rachel looked up at him. "You are and have always 
been my hero," she answered. " From the night in that 
little French restaurant when I looked up and found your 
eyes upon me I have had no hero but you." 

" A poor hero," he said, faintly, choking back the cough 
in his throat. 

He lay still for a while, so still that she fancied him ex 
hausted and asleep. With a passionate tenderness she al 
lowed her eyes to rest upon him, upon the drawn face and 
the whole ruined length of him. And then 

" He is mine," she thought, exultingly " mine for all 
time !" 

The broken and wasted remains of a great vitality, the 
decay of a towering ambition, querulous complaints in place 
of an impassioned reserve, death in place of life these were 
hers. Hers the scattered crumbs from the bread of life, 
hers the stagnant slime left of an all-powerful passion. 

She moved gently, loosening her hold upon his hand, 
fearing to disturb his rest by an emotion which defied con 
trol. He stirred and turned towards her. 



276 THE DESCENDANT 

" Rachel," he said, " don't let go !" 

Leaning above him, she kissed his brow, his eyes, his 
lips. 

"You want me ?" she asked, with passionate compassion. 

He strove to raise himself, but she held him back. 

"I always wanted you," he answered, "except when I 
was sure I had you." And he added, slowly : " You are so 
steadfast." 

She kissed his burning hand. It was her reward. 

He struggled up, a light flashing in his eyes, his domi 
nant nature, undaunted by failure and death, asserting itself 
again. 

"Rachel," he said, breathlessly, "would you fight the 
world for me ?" 

Her eyes caressed him. 

" I would fight God for you !" she answered. 

With a sudden energy he pushed back his chair and rose 
to his feet. As he did so a cord within his chest seemed 
to strain and snap asunder, loosening the foundations of 
life. He put up his hand to force back the paroxysm of 
coughing, but it broke forth with a strangled violence, and 
with it a thin line of blood rose to his lips, oozing upon the 
handkerchief with which he strove to stanch it. 

He fell back in the chair, letting the scarlet stream pass 
between his lips, and putting aside the arms Rachel had 
cast about him. 

Then in a moment it was over, and he lay looking up at 
her, his face carved in the marble whiteness of pain, his 
brilliant eyes unclouded. There was a harder battle to 
fight before the end would find him. 

In his face the old fearless spirit which could be quenched 
but by dust shone brightly. 

" Give me half a chance," he said, " and I will be even 
with the world at last !" 

But upon his lips was set the blood-red seal of fate. 

THE END 



BY GEOBGE DU MAURIER 



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